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Carlos Ovalle
P.Eng., M.Sc., Ph.D.
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Associate Professor
Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering
Phone: (514) 340-4711 Ext. 4255 Fax: (514) 340-3981 Room: A-356
Areas of expertise
Geotechnical engineering (including engineering geology) Mining engineering
Google Scholar ResearchGate ORCID LinkedIn

Research interests and affiliations

Research interests
  • Mining geotechnics
  • Mine waste management
  • Hydromechanical degradation of geomaterials
  • Experimental geotechnics
  • Multiscale and constitutive modeling
  • Characterization of coarse granular materials
  • Valorization of mine wastes and tailings
Affiliation(s)
Expertise type(s) (NSERC subjects)
  • 1002 Geotechnical engineering (including engineering geology)
  • 1401 Mining engineering

Publications

Featured
See all publications (79)

Biography

I am Associate Professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal since 2018. I am also member of the Research Institute on Mines and the Environment (RIME) UQAT-Polytechnique, a joint research program including six major industrial partners, developing innovative solutions to face environmental challenges in mining.

I hold a BSc in Civil Engineering from the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile, and in 2010 I received a MSc in Geotechnical Engineering from École Centrale Paris in France. I obtained my PhD in 2013 at École Centrale de Nantes in France, and I was an assistant professor at PUC Chile from 2013 to 2018.

Before my PhD, I worked 10 years for engineering consultant companies involved in Environmental Geotechnics for mining operations in the Andes Mountains in South America (Chile, Peru and Argentina). Since 2010, I have continued in the same field but with an academic approach: learning, teaching and investigating. My research interests include experimental and numerical developments for the characterisation and modeling of geotechnical problems, with a special focus on mining waste storage facilities.

Teaching

MIN3311 Géotechnique minière

MIN8176 Exploitation en souterrain

MIN8986 (participation) : Projet intégrateur IV en génie des mines

Education

Supervision at Polytechnique

IN PROGRESS

  • Post-doctoral fellowship (3)

    • Cardenas-Barrantes, Manuel. Multi-scale mechanics of granular media.
    • Cantor, David. Numerical and physical approaches of hydromechanical rockfill degradation.
    • Samy, Garcia Torres. Hydro-geotechnical behavior and physical stability of mining waste co-disposition in an open pit backfill.

  • Ph.D. (8)

    • Le Van, Quyen. Experimental investigation of fines content on liquefaction potential of mine tailings.
    • Jalalichi, Zahra. Assessment of the mechanical behavior of mine waste rock open-pit backfill using field monitoring, numerical modeling and back-analyses.
    • Castro-Malaver, Carolina. Numerical investigation of fines content on liquefaction potential of mine tailings.
    • Carrasco, Sergio. Discrete modeling of particle size–strength and size–shape correlations effects on crushable granular media.
    • Girumugisha, Gilbert. Scaling methodologies for mechanical characterisation of mining waste rock .
    • Behlke, Florian. Co-disposal of Tailings and Waste Rock.
    • Quiroz-Rojo, Paula. Scaling effects in Rockfill degradation using multi-scale DEM Modeling and Experiments.
    • Hamad, Abu. Runoff analysis of co-disposal facilities (Dir. Li Li ; Co-dir. Carlos Ovalle).

  • Master (thesis) (3)

    • El Gharroubi, Ihsane.
    • Hajji, Lina. Experimental runoff analysis of co-disposal facilities (Dir. Li Li ; Co-dir. Carlos Ovalle).
    • Msehli, Ilhem. WR&T interaction in co-disposal facilities (Dir. Li Li ; Co-dir. Carlos Ovalle).

COMPLETED

News about Carlos Ovalle

NEWS | September 4, 2020
Sustainable development in the mining sector: the Government of Québec helps fund six projects headed by Polytechnique professors | Read

Press review about Carlos Ovalle

May 27, 2025, La Presse, Industrie minière | Transformer les pratiques pour décarboner l’industrie Carlos Ovalle, professeur au Département des génies civil, géologique et des mines, travaille sur une nouvelle approche de gestion des rejets miniers appelée codéposition. Il propose une solution innovante pour réduire l’impact environnemental des déchets miniers, en misant sur la complémentarité physique de deux types de rejets et en visant une valorisation sécuritaire et durable.