Summary
Overview
I am a PhD student in the Mechanics and Infrastructure Materials Lab and President’s PhD Scholar at Imperial College London. My research is focused on the chemo-mechanical modelling of corrosion-induced fracture in reinforced concrete and is supervised by Dr Emilio Martínez-Pañeda, Prof Milan Jirásek and Dr Hong S. Wong.
Education
Born and raised in Prague, Czech Republic, I joined the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU), where I studied successively for a first-class bachelor (2018) and master’s degree (2020) in structural and transportation engineering. There I was privileged to join its Department of Mathematics (2015- 2016) under the supervision of Prof Ivana Pultarová. Later, I joined the Department of Mechanics (2016 - 2020). There, under the supervision of Prof Milan Jirasek, I was analysing and developing models for the buckling of elastic beams and formulating the model for torsion of elastic beams with thin-walled closed cross-section. During my master’s degree, I had a privilege to join Prof Garth N. Wells and his group at the Cambridge Center for Micromechanics at the University of Cambridge as an academic visitor (2020). While in his group, I was working on suitable methods (especially Nitsche methods) for enforcing contact boundary conditions in large scale (specifically exascale) multi-physical problems. This research was conducted for ASiMoV Project, the largest high-performance computing focused research project in the UK in recent times, worth $14.7M. The results of my research are summed up in my master’s thesis.
Collaboration opportunities
Because of the multidisciplinary nature of my research and rapid development of corrosion science in general, I am very interested in discussing any potential collaboration. Also, the applications from motivated master’s, undergraduate and intern students are always welcome.
Other websites
Publications
Journals
Korec E, Jirásek M, Wong HS, et al. , 2023, A phase-field chemo-mechanical model for corrosion-induced cracking in reinforced concrete, Construction and Building Materials, Vol:393, ISSN:0950-0618, Pages:1-23
Zafra A, Harris Z, Korec E, et al. , 2023, On the relative efficacy of electropermeation and isothermal desorption approaches for measuring hydrogen diffusivity, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Vol:48, ISSN:0360-3199, Pages:1218-1233