About

Sandra Soares-Frazão is professor at the Polytechnical School of UCLouvain since 2011, teaching several courses both at Bachelor and Master level, such as basic hydraulics for Bachelor students in civil engineering, then open-channel flows, fluvial hydraulics, numerical simulations of transient flows, and hydropower plants at Master level. The Covid pandemic was the opportunity to develop online courses (hydraulics, in French, and open-channel flows, in English) for UCLouvain students, that are also publicly available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/SandraSoaresFrazao_Teaching). Her research activities focus on fluvial hydraulics and transient flows, considering both numerical simulations and laboratory experiments. Since 2014, she has an important commitment is scientific cooperation, through large research projects funded by ARES, mainly in Haiti, through which PhD students are also funded.

Career Type:

Scientist/Researcher/Academic

Organization Type:

Universities and Academia

Expertise Fields/Interests:

Fluvial hydraulics, sediment transport, fast transient flows, numerical simulations, non-intrusive measurement techniques.

Major Achievements:

During my PhD, I started the development of a research simulation tool SV2D for free-surface flows, using the finite-volume method. Continuous developments with Master and PhD students all along my carrier have led to several versions of this tool, including 1D and 2D versions, sediment transport, bank erosion, porosity models, all dedicated to fast transient flows. In parallel with numerical simulations, I developed with the UCLouvain research team an expertise in idealized laboratory experiments highlighting key features of fast transient flows. Non-intrusive measurement techniques were and are still developed to monitor the flow velocities and morphological evolution during such flows. This has led to the production of numerous experimental data sets used worldwide by researchers in the field to validate their numerical simulation tools.