Alex Ferrer

Welcome to my website!

I’m an associate researcher at CIMNE and a "Serra-Hunter" associate professor at the Physics Department at Universitat Politècnica de Catatlunya in Barcelona.
I have spent one year as a sponsored researcher at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford.
I finished a three-year postdoc at Ecole Polytecnique in Paris funded by a Marie Curie Individual fellowship awarded in 2019.
I spend one year as a Post-doc at FEMPAR group developing HPC for Topology optimization.
I obtained my PhD in Computational Mechanics at UPC in Multi-scale topology optimization (more info here). A copy of my thesis can be found here.
I am currently teaching Flight mechanics, hypersonic aerodynamics and numerical methods for optimization and machine Learning at Universitat Politècnica de Catatlunya.
You can check my Google Scholar and Orcid for updates.
I am leading the development of Swan project, an open source code for Topology Optimization.
Curiosity is my driving force as a researcher. I believe in collaborative research rather than competitive research. So, please do not hesitate to contact me at aferrer@cimne.upc.edu

Associate researcher

International Center of Numerical Methods for Engineering (CIMNE). CAMMS group, Edifici C1, Campus Nord, C/ Gran Capitán S/N UPC, 08034 Barcelona, Spain. Email: aferrer@cimne.upc.edu

Associate professor.

Universitat Polytechnica de Catalunya (UPC). Aeronautical division, Department of Physics, Campus de Terrasa, Edificio TR1. C. Colom, 1. 08222 Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain. Email: alex.ferrer@upc.edu

News section

2024-2025

30th-31st of January. Attending to the GIMC-SEMNI workshop at FNB to foster new collaborations between SEMNI and GIMC.

27th of January. Selected as a member of the executive comission of SEMNI, looking forward!

22th of January. Raul Rubio is giving a seminar about Preconditioning via Reduced order models at Làcan.

21th of January. Kick-off meeting of TopSat project jointly with ESA and our colleagues from Inegi.

13-17h of January. Visiting Jesús Martinez and Rogelio Ortigosa from Multisimo team at University Politècnica of Cartagena for further collaboration in Hyperelasticity.

9-10th of January. Augusto Romero is visiting us to discuss about multimaterial topology optimization. Nice talk and thanks for coming.

9th of Janaury. Discussing with CIM about Swan and future ideas for collaboration.

8th of Janaury. Visit from Malena Sabaté is visiting us to discuss about recycling and preconditioning.

7th of January. Paper submitted: "Phase-field modeling of fracture via homogenization" jointly with F. Otero and G. Villalta

7th of January. Back to work with many new things to come!

23th December. Starting holidays until 7th of January! Marry Christmas and happy new year!

22th December. Exchanging with Michael Gfrerer join interests in Topological derivative.

21th December. Christmas lunch with the colleagues of the Aeronautical section of the Physics department.

21th December. Exploring new teaching methodologies at ESEIAAT for Flight mechanics and other lectures in the Aeronautical department.

18th December. Visiting CIM, an advanced 3D printing lab at UPC with a lot of research interests in common.

17th December. Visiting Asorcad to explore new Topology optimization tools for their designs.

16th December. CIMNE Christmas toast, happy to see many colleagues.

13th December. Christmas dinner of CAMMS. We were more than 20 this time!

9th December. Our paper on "Global length and overhang control for level set and density approaches via perimeter minimization" has been accepted and will be published at IJNME. Thanks J. A. Torres and F. Otero for your work!

6th December. Travelling to Avignon for one week to visit my mentor Samuel Amstutz! Really nice to be back to Avignon and to exchange new research ideas with Samuel!

27th November. Meeting with Singular Aircraft for potential collaboration in composite material design, topology optimization, flight trajectory optimization and hydrofoil design. Thanks Ester for making it possible!

26th November. Meeting with Peter Gangl in Barcelona to discuss about Topology optimization and many other topics. Very interesting!

15th November. Starting teaching ENIA at ESEIAAT (UPC).

15th November. First experimental campaign at FNB for gathering useful data to train our ML model in the context of our OPEN ARMS project.

12th November. Exchanging with M. Giacomini and P. Diez ideas about optimal transport techniques.

6th November. Exploring jointly with J. Mancipar and J. Jimenez from Transfer of Technology department at CIMNE possible industrial paths of our CAMMS grup.

5th November. Attending to the eight sessions course of Gamma convergence at CRM by Alberto Maione. Let's see if I finally understand the topic! :)

30th October. Attending to the interesting seminar of Prof. Michael Ortiz about quantum computational mechanics.

29th October. Our OSIP project for ESA, entitled "TopSat: "Ultralightweight CubeSat chassis enabled by anisotropic topology optimization of composite materials" has been approved. Starting 1st of Janaury, looking forward!

24th October. Presenting our research lines to AVIC INTL for potential research collaboration.

18th October. Pau Climent has been awarded a one-year research project by the Spanish Ministry of Education with us on the design of materials via neuronal networks. Congratulations!

16th October. Prof. Javier Principe is visiting us to discuss about preconditioning through model order reduction jointly with Raul Rubio and J. Hernandez.

15th October. Our project Flexion: Design of FLEXible materials and structures via shape and topology optimizatION has been approved! This is a joint project between the Spanish and German research agency AEI-DFG. Starting on 1st of Janaury with Antoine Laurain. Looking forward!

14th October. Member of the Jury responsible for choosing external faculty members for our Physics Department.

10th October. Visiting Prof A. Rodriguez for discussing about Phase field models in fracture mechanics.

1st-3rd October. Organising the Math-SOMMA junior meeting at CRM. Very enjoyable experience with young mathematicians.

1st of October. Giovanna Castello is doing with us her PhD stage in the topic of connectivity constraints for Topology optimization until 31st of March. Welcome Giovanna!

25th of September. Visiting Prof. Javier Principe to discuss about Topology optimization and connectivity constraints.

24th of September. Examiner of the PhD thesis (Connor Nicholas Mallon)of the University of Monash in Topology Optimization

20th of September. Our TopSat project selected for the second round of OSIP project for ESA with our colleges at Inegi.

13th of September of 2024. Starting our CAMMS meetings at FNB.

9th of September of 2024. Starting our weekly Swan meetings.

9th of September of 2024. Modamed Esmail is visiting our group to develop his final Master thesis related with new nonlinear filters jointly with J. Torres. Welcome!

4 September of 2024. Back to work with an amazing year to come.

2023-2024

29th of July of 2024. Starting holidays! :)

25th of July of 2024. Good news! TOMAT project (Spanish national project) has been awarded. The idea is to develop new topology optimization tools for hyperelastic and composite materials.

23th of July of 2024. Visiting David Ruiz Garcia at Universidad Castilla la Mancha (Toledo) to discuss about Topology optimization and connectivity constraints.

17-19th July of 2024. Visiting Israel Garcia at Universidad de Sevilla to discuss about coupled criteria, phase field, fracture mechanics and others. Very nice days, always happy to be back to Sevilla!

16th of July of 2024. Starting our exciting research project for Open Arms, developed at FNB (UPC) and leaded by X. Martinez.

15th of July of 2024. Arnau Pena is defending his final Master thesis. Congratulations!

15th of July of 2024. Joel Carrasco is defending his final Master thesis. Congratulations!

12th of July of 2024. Attending to Physics department annual meeting.

11th of July of 2024. Attending with all CAMMS group to the Amade days.

9th of July of 2024. Attending to the Physics department teaching days.

8th of July of 2024. Mario Fernández presents his final undergraduate project.

8th of July of 2024. Pau Cornudella presents his final undergraduate project

8th of July of 2024. Joan Vives presents his final undergraduate project

8th of July of 2024. Rosa Galán presents her final undergraduate project.

8th of July of 2024. Gerard Martí presents his final undergraduate project.

8th of July of 2024. Daniel Colas presents his final undergraduate project.

8th of July of 2024. Gerard Fortuny presents his final undergraduate project.

5th of July of 2024. R. Rubio is defending his mid-term PhD thesis.

5th of July of 2024. J. Torres is defending his mid-term PhD thesis.

1st of July of 2024. Ton Creus is starting his PhD, bonne courage!

26th of June of 2024. Ton Creus has defended his Master thesis. Congratulations!

19th of June of 2024. Meeting M. Giacommini to discuss about preconditioning and ROM jointly with R.Rubio and J.Hernandez.

12th June of 2024. Attending to the research seminar of Lacàn at UPC.

3-7th June of 2024. Attending to ECCOMAS (Lisbon) to disseminate dehomogenization results developed jointly with G.Allaire, P. Geoffroy. Also presenting last developments with R. Rubio, J. Torres, G.Villalta. O. Schwahofer.

7-9th May of 2024. Attending to Newfrac conference (Porto) with F. Otero and G.Villalta to disseminate some first phase-field results.

1st May 2024. Starting to teach ENIA at ESEIAAT (UPC).

18th April of 2024. Starting teaching Hypersonic aerodynamics at ESEIAAT (UPC)

09th April of 2024. Attending to the Advanced Factories conference.

09th April of 2024. Starting this news section.