Université Laval
Faculté des sciences
et de génie

Luca Sorelli, ing.

Professeur titulaire, Ph.D

Champs d'intérêts

  • Development of applications for new composite materials
  • Micro-structure characterization and multi-scale modeling
  • Structural design of Ultra High Performance Concrete (UHPC)
  • Numerical analysis and advanced modeling
  • Composite structures timber-concrete for buildings and bridges
Luca Sorelli, professeur au Département de génie civil et de génie des eaux

Undergraduate courses

  • GCI-2011 « Conception de structures I »
  • GCI-2001 « Théorie de poutres »
  • GCI-2000 « Mécanique de solides déformables »
  • GCI-3000 « Conception des structures II »

Graduate courses

  • GCI-7084 « Micromécanique et durabilité de milieux poreux » (click for more information on this course)
  • GCI-7091 « Conception avancée de structures en béton composite et structures mixtes »

Présentations de conférenciers invités click

Axis 3: Structural applications

Axis 1: Chemo-mechanical micro-structure characterization of composite materials

The new nano- and micro-indentation techniques are used to characterize the properties of materials at the microstructure scale. The potential is enormous for the industrial applications for rapid characterizaing new composites. For example, it is now possible to predict the long-term creep of concrete (30-50 years) with microindentation tests (5-10 minutes).

Axis 2: Multi-scale modeling

Micromechanical tools are developed to upscale the microstrucure property to the overall ones needed to engineers. Such tools take into account porosity and water in concretes as they play an important role in the behavior of concrete (e.g. drying shrinkage is due to the forces of water menisci in the pores capillaries). In addition, models are developed to understand the creep mechanisms associated with water and mechanical coupling (e.g. damage).

Axis 3: Structural applications (a) Modeling and Design of High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete Structures, UHPC; (b) Innovative design of wood-concrete structures

(a) We develop finite element models (in open-source code Aster software) developed advanced applications of materials in structures. Ex. We have developed a software to predict the effect of fiber orientation in the UHPF which is currently used for the design of the UHPC cover of the stadium J Bouin in Paris. The defect effect and orientation of the fibers on the flexural behavior and the slabs in UHPC are characterized in laboratory by advanced techniques of image analysis.

(b) Innovative solutions are developed for mixed wood-concrete structures for buildings and bridges, taking into account the economic challenge and the environmental impact

Industrial Projets developed by the members of our Research Group

1) Design of the formwork and casting procedure to avoid early age cracking in a single-piece of 33 m length UHPFRC footbridge in Calgary (2008) (Pic 1)

2) Finite Element analysis of the UHPFRC footbridge of the « Pont de Diable” footbridge in Montpellier (2008)” (Pic 2)

3) Finite Element analysis of the footbridge of the muCEM museum “Passerelle” MUCEM Marseille (2008) with architect Rudy Ricciotti with ratio between span and height of about 40. (Pic 3)

4) Finite Element analysis of UHPFRC Blandan footbridge à Lyon (2013) with the concrete slab working in tension. (Pic 4)

5) Finite Element analysis of triangular elemnts of the cover of the stadium  “Jean Bouin”, Paris (2014) with architect Rudy Ricciotti (Pic 5)

6) Ongoing experimental investigation and FEM analysis of UHPFRC slab for composite bridges (under going) with IFSTTAR (Paris) - Lafarge (Pic 6)

7) Hopefully, some projects soon in Quebec…

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Tools developed for supporting civil engineering applications

Released:

1) DDuctile-TCS(R) - Version Beta 1.0 released
A practical software to analyze and design mixed composite structures made by a wood beam and concrete slab, which accounts for the non-linearity of the materials and the connection behaviour. The software has been validated on connector shear tests and full scale tests on 5 meter beams in laboratory.

To be released soon

2) K-FRC(R) - under development
You can predict the tensile law of a Fiber Reinforced Concrete simply by assuming the fibre geometry (diameter and length, the fibre property (E-modulus and strength), the cementitious matrix property (E-modulus and toughness) and the fibre distribution.
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3) K-BFUP-FEM(R) - under development
You can use this usermat to model the behaviour of UHPC structures by accounting for the fiber direction. The code has been validated on industrial projects like the Stadium Jean Bouin in Paris and the footbridge of Blendon in Lyon. The subroutine can be easily installed in Code_Aster FEM software (which is freely available by by Energy Departement France: link )

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4) Hyd-Cem(R) - under development
You can predict the hydration and the E-modulus development of concrete at early age by simply giving the mix design and the clinker mineralogy.  

 Selected publications

  • Picard, DJ, Sorelli, L., Réthoré J., Alamdari H., Baril, M.A., Fafard M., Identification of the Stress Intensity Factor of Carbon Cathode by Digital Image Correlation, Springer, Light Metals 2017,  1275-1280
  • Chimeni, D.Y., Vallée, É., Sorelli, L., Rodrigue D., “Effect of glass bead size and content on the thermomechanical properties of LDPE composites”, Submitted to Wiley Polymers Engineering and Science, Accepted for publication on November 2019
  • Wilson, W., Sorelli, L., Tagnit-Hamou, A. “Automated coupling of Statistical NanoIndentation and Quantitative Energy-Dispersive Spectroscopy (SNI-QEDS): A comprehensive method to disclose the micro-mechanical properties of cement pastes”, Elsevier Cement and Concrete Composites. Volume 91, January 2017, Accepted for publication and available on line from September 2017.
  • Laadila, M. A., Hegde, K., Rouissi, T., Brar, S. K., Galvez, R., Sorelli, L., Abokitse, K. (2017). Green synthesis of novel biocomposites from treated cellulosic fibers and recycled bio-plastic polylactic acid. Elsevier, Journal of Cleaner Production, 164, 15 October 2017, Pages 575–586.
  • Zhang, C., Sorelli, L., Fournier, B., Duchesne, J., Bastien, J., Chen, Z. Stress Relaxation of Crystalline Alkali-Silica Reaction Products: Characterization by Micro and Nano-indentation and Simplified Modeling, Elsevier, Construction Building Materials in November, 148, 1 September 2017, Pages 455–464
  • Zhao, C., Sorelli, L., Frech-Baronet, J., Sanahuja, J., Vandamme M., Chen J. Duality between Creep and Relaxation of a Cement Paste at Different Levels of Relative Humidity: Characterization by Microindentation and Analytical Modeling, Journal of Nanomechanics and Micromechanics, 2017, 7(4).
  • Ferrara, L, Cremonesi, M, Faifer, M., Toscani, S., Sorelli, L., Baril, M.A., Réthoré, J., Baby, F., Toutlemonde F., and Bernardi, S., Structural elements made with highly flowable UHPFRC: can Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and non-destructive survey of fiber dispersion complement structural design in predicting failure modes? Elsevier Engineering Structures, 15 February 2017, Pages 151–171
  • Frech-Baronet, J., Sorelli, L., J.P. Charron, New evidences on the effect of the internal relative humidity on the creep and relaxation behaviour of a cement paste by micro-indentation techniques, Elsevier Cement and Concrete Research, Volume 91, January 2017, Pages 39–51
  • Wilson, W., Rivera-Torres, J. M., Sorelli, L., Durán-Herrera, A., Tagnit-Hamou, A. “A coupled chemo-mechanical analysis of the microstructure of high performance high-volume natural pozzolan concretes”’, Elsevier Cement and Concrete Composites. Volume 91, January 2017, Pages 1–12
  • Duhamel-Labrecque, Y., Sorelli, L., Réthoré, J., Baby, F., Toutlemonde, F., Bernadi, S., Featuring the Micro-Cracking Process of UHPFRC under Bending by Digital Image Correlation ACI Material journal. under review
  • Baril, M.A., Sorelli, L., Réthoré, J., Ferrara, L., Toutlemonde, F., Baby, F., Bernardi, Fafard, M., S. “The Effect of Casting Flow Defects on the Crack Propagation of UHPFRC Thin Slabs by Stereovision Digital Image Correlation”, Elsevier Construction Building Materials, Volume 129, 30 December 2016, Pages 182–192.
  • Cuerrier Auclair S., Sorelli, L, Salenikovih, A., New Composite Connector for Timber-Concrete Composite Structures, Elsevier Construction and Building Materials, 112, 1 June 2016, 84–92
  • Cuerrier Auclair S., Sorelli, L,, Salenikovih, A., Simplified Non-Linear Model for Timber-Concrete Composite Beams, Elsevier, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences, Volume 117, October 2016, 30–42
  • Bah, S. T , Ba , C. O. F., D’Auteuil, M., Ashrit, P.V., Sorelli, L., Vallée, R. Fabrication of TaOxNy thin films by ion beam assisted double beam cathode sputtering for optical applications for consideration to Thin Solid Films, Elsevier Thin Solid Films, Volume 615, 30 September 2016, 351–357
  • Cuerrier Auclair S., Sorelli, L, Fafard, M., Salenikovih, A., The Effect of Rotatory Inertia on the Natural Frequencies of Composite Beams, Elsevier, Journal of Sound and Vibration, 366, 31/03/2016, 230–247.
  • Sorelli, L., Fabbri, F., Frech-Baronet, J., Fafard, M., Vu, A-D, Gacoin, T., Lalhil, K,, Martinelli, L., Peretti, J.  A Closer Look at the Light Induced Changes in the Visco-elastic Properties of Azobenze-Containing Polymers by Statistical Nano-indentation, Journal of Materials Chemistry C, Elsevier, 11 September 2015, 11055-11065.
  • Venkovic, N., Sorelli, L., Martitena, F., 2012 “Nanoindentation Study of Calcium-Silicate-Hydrates in Concrete Hydrated with Bioplasticizer of Efficient Microorganisms" Under review for Elsevier, Cement and Concrete Composites.
  • Sorelli, L., Davila, R., Ulm, F.-J., 2012 `The Thermo-Chemo-Mechanical Coupling Accounted For Early Age Cracking of Ultra High Performance Concrete Bridges', Under review for Elsevier Journal of Engineering Structures.
  • Venkovic, N., Sorelli, L., Gagné, R., 2012, ‘Uncertainty Propagation of a Multiscale Poromechanics-Hydration Model for Poroelastic Properties of Cement Paste at Early-Age', Elsevier Journal of Probabilistic Engineering Mechanics, (7)1-18.
  • Chen, J.J., Sorelli, L., Vandamme, M., Ulm, F.-J. and Chanvillard G., 2010 ‘A coupled nanoindentation/SEM-EDX study on low water/cement ratio Portland cement paste: Evidence for C–S–H/CH nanocomposites’ Journal American of Ceramic Society, 93(5) 1484-1493.
  • Sorelli, L., Constantinides, G., Ulm, F.-J., Toutlemonde, F., 2008 ‘The nano-mechanical signature of Ultra High Performance Concrete by statistical nanoindentation techniques’ Cement and Concrete Research, 38,(12) December 1447-1456
  • Sorelli, L., Meda A., Plizzari G. A., 2006 `Steel Fibre Reinforced Slabs on Grade: a Structural Matter', American Concrete Institute, Structural Journal, July-August, v.103, No. 4, 551-558.
  • Toutlemonde, F., Resplendino, J., Sorelli, L., Bouteille, S., and Brisard S. 2005 `Innovative Design of Ultra High-Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete Ribbed Slab: Experimental Validation and Preliminary Detailed Analyses', American Concrete Institute, SP-228-76, June, 1187-1206.
  • Sorelli, L., Plizzari G. A., Meda A, 2004 `Bending and Uniaxial Tensile Tests on Concrete Reinforced with Hybrid Steel Fibers', J. Material Civil Engineering, ASCE, September - Octobre, v.17, No.5, 519-527.
  • Sorelli, L., Banthia, N. and Plizzari, G., 2004 `Crack Growth Resistance of Thin Mortar Layers with Hybrid Fiber Reinforcement', American Concrete Institute, SP-224, 161-178

JOB OFFERS

  • MSc Fellowship (Bourse de maîtrse) on the composite structures timber/concrete

Send to  luca.sorelli@gci.ulaval.ca:

  1. CV complete 
  2. motivation letter
  3. report card (bulletin de notes)
  4. list of 2 references
  • 03.2014: 1 poste de Doctorat disponible

(i) Doctorat en structures mixtes bois-béton et développement durable: "conception multi-critaire des structures bois-béton". À partir de 05.2014. Liste de candidat ouvert.

si intéressé, envoyer une courriel avec votre CV et 2 lettres de référence

  • Page-video des invités PRESENTATIONS
  • 11.2012:Lancement du projet "Université Laval pour Haïti ULpH ". Soyez courageux, engagez-vous
  • 01.2012 Fondation du comité CAADC
  • 07.2011 Fondation du 1er laboratoire de nanomécanique à l'Université Laval : " A new Laboratory for the Chemo-Mechanical Characterization of Materials " Microstructures"  LCM2M

P. Eng., M. Sc. A., Ph. D.

  • Responsable du laboratoire de génie civil Matériaux et structures depuis 11.2013
  • Directeur du laboratoire L(CM)2M  de nano-mécanique de l’Université Laval (« Laboratory for the Chemo-Mechanical Characterization of Materials' Microstructure »)
  • Directeur du comité d'appui et d'action au développement communautaire GCI-GEX CAADC
  • Ingénieur au centre de recherche Lafarge, Lyon (2008)
  • Chercheur au MIT, Cambridge (2004-2006)
  • Chercheur au LCPC-IFSTTAR, Paris (2002, 2007)