Cornel Ilinca

Lecturer eng. Cornel Ilinca, PhD, is affiliated with the Department of Hydrotechnical Engineering within the Faculty of Hydrotechnics at the Technical University of Civil Engineering of Bucharest (UTCB). He has been actively involved in teaching, research, and hydrotechnical design since the late 1990s, working under the mentorship of Professor Adrian Popovici. His professional roles include serving as head of technical projects for small hydropower facilities and leading dam design projects such as the Sacherstita dam. He has participated in major infrastructure programs and international collaborations in Ecuador, Trinidad-Tobago, and Iraq, contributing to both practical engineering solutions and national regulatory frameworks.

His research interests span Hydrology, Water Management, Hydrotechnical Structures, Seismic Engineering, and Coastal Engineering. He applies computational methods such as neural networks and statistical models to monitor and assess hydrotechnical constructions. He has developed practical engineering software using Mathcad for structural stability, hydropower, and hydrological calculations, which are used by professionals and educators. Together with his mentor, he co-authored an educational application book on Dynamics and Seismic Engineering for university students.

Cornel Ilinca serves as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals published by MDPI and Wiley, including Applied Sciences, Hydrology, Water, Journal of Flood Risk Management, and others across domains such as sustainability, remote sensing, and geosciences. He was also an expert evaluator for national research grant proposals in the hydropower sector under GnaC ARUT 2023.

He contributed to the development of key Romanian technical standards, including NP 076-2013 (seismic design of hydrotechnical works), NP 130-2013 (loads for retention structures), and NP 136/1-2014 (sliding stability of concrete dams). Additionally, he participated in a Swiss-Romanian cooperation project that produced a Good Practice Guide for micro hydropower investments.

Cornel Ilinca has collaborated with various industry partners such as GIC (Industrial Components Group), Vienna Energy, Forta Naturala, MVM Energy Romania, Alpha Construct, Hidroelectrica, and the Romanian National Water Administration. He has also been involved in EU-funded initiatives like the Large Infrastructure Operational Programme and the Erasmus+ mobility program.