Grenoble Geomechanics

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 51

Manuel Cardenas — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:51:07 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

Welcome to the 51st edition of our bulletin!

As always, this issue highlights some of the main activities, achievements, and milestones of the past trimester. It has been another lively few months for our team, with good news, new people, visits, projects, and publications to share.

Don’t hesitate to share this newsletter with your colleagues and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, feel free to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

Master “Geomechanics Civil Engineering and Risks 2025-2026″

Four of the twenty-one students of the master program “Geomechanics, Civil Engineering and Risks” have been working, since February, at their research project within our team: Shakil (from Bangladesh) with Alice, Mattia (from Italy) with Ritesh and Alice, and Konstantina (from Greece) and Juliana (from Nigeria) with Olga, Cyrille, and Cino. Raphael (from France – yes it happens!) is currently in Tsukuba, Japan – working with Takashi Matsushima. For the last two months of his project (May and June) he will be back to Grenoble, and he will work with Quentin and Cyrille.

This year the master defenses will take place from Monday, June 29 through Wednesday, July 1st. On Wednesday evening, the traditional barbecue will celebrate the end of their master year.

You are all invited — please save the date!

Publications!

Pirrone, S. R. M., Del Dottore, E., Just, G., Mazzolai, B., & Sibille, L. (2026) – The effect of tip design on technological performance during the exploration of Earth, Lunar, and Martian soil environments. Journal of Field Robotics, 43(1), 387–408.
Richefeu, V., Combe, G., Amarsid L., Prat, R., Vanson, J., Nezamabadi, S., Mutabaruka, P., Delenne, J., Radjaï F. (2026) – Advanced strategies for discrete simulations with three-dimensional R-shapes in rockable framework. Computer Physics Communications, 320(109997).
Wang, S., Luan, J.-Y., Wang, J.-P., Shang, H., Li, M., Ge, S., & Viggiani, G. (2026) – Drying of partially saturated granular materials: a combined study using X-ray tomography and Lattice Boltzmann modeling. Acta Geotechnica, March 2026.
Cárdenas-Barrantes, M., Renouf, M., Azéma, E., Ovalle. C., (2026) – Comparing granular and fragmentation-driven silo DEM models for block caving.Powder Technology, 122409.

A medal for Tomoya and his supervisors!

We are thrilled to announce that the paper “Experimental Measurement of Root Growth and Root-Soil Interaction in a Bi-Layered Sand Using X-Ray Tomography” by Tomoya et al. has been awarded the prestigious 2026 Sir Benjamin Baker Medal by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

The award ceremony will take place at the ICE headquarters in London on July 2, 2026. Most likely, Tomoya and Cino will attend the ceremony — and of course, they will take pictures!

Projects!

Pilot energy pile coupled with a photovoltaic system installed in Torino, Italy

In the context of the LEG-DHC project, aiming to assess the feasibility of heat storage through energy pile, the UGA team (Mattia GARZA, Ritesh GUPTA and Alice DI DONNA) installed a pilot energy pile (12m length and 60 cm outer diameter) coupled with a photovoltaic system in Turin, Italy.

The photovoltaic system is based on an innovative technology developed and patented by the industrial partner Free Energy Technology (FET). This novel technology is easy to install on traditional environments, as roof tiles.

In the pile, a novel two-helical-loops heating tube system was implemented, following the design developed through numerical model in COMSOL multi-physics ©. The novel two loop system is proposed to enable simultaneous heat storage and extraction, or storage only or extraction only, depending on the meteorological conditions and seasonal energy demand.

The pile was equipped with temperature sensors and is now being connected to the photovoltaic system. Monitoring data will follow in the coming months.

Seminars, Workshops, Meetings and Conferences!

Upcoming national conference on geotechnics and engineering geology in Grenoble!
Colleagues from the Geomechanics group (Pierre Bésuelle, Cyrille Couture, Christophe Dano, Fabrice Emeriault, Orianne Jenck, Quentin Rousseau), in collaboration with INRAE (Stéphane Lambert) and ISTerre (Grégory Bièvre), are organizing JNGG 2026 (Journées Nationales de Géotechnique et Géologie de l’Ingénieur), which will take place in Grenoble from April 7 to 10.

More than 250 participants are expected to attend the conference. The program includes 3 plenary sessions, 18 parallel sessions, and a technical exhibition. The last day will be devoted to technical visits.

Members of the Geomechanics team — including PhD students, post-docs, and staff — will present their work during the conference.
More information can be found on: jngg2026.sciencesconf.org

Stay tuned — we will report back on the event in the next newsletter!
Art and Science
Cino is participating in the science communication project “Granular Perspectives”, which showcases the work of our colleague Gerti Medicus (University of Innsbruck) and her brother, the artist Thomas Medicus. The project is funded by the Austrian Science Fund.

This initiative also builds on Cino’s earlier experience with projects such as “Essere vento” by Giuseppe Penone about ten years ago (see 3sr.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/en/node/109).

In February, Cino spent a few days in Innsbruck together with Eddy Andò (formerly at 3SR, now at EPFL) and Mehdi Pouragha (Carleton University, Canada) to meet with all project participants and define the main directions of the project.

The project will culminate in a public glass sculpture inspired by the microscopic world of sand, to be installed on the Innsbruck campus.
Cino in China (again!)
Since March 8, Cino has been travelling across China, visiting Shandong University in Jinan, Tsinghua University in Beijing, Chang’an University in Xi’an, and Westlake University in Hangzhou.

He will attend two workshops: one in Jinan at the end of March, and another in Xi’an on April 12–13.
In Jinan, he is joined by Michela Arciero, a former PhD student from our team. Together, they are collaborating with colleagues at Shandong University on research into the mechanics of fiber-reinforced sand.

Visits!

Like every January since 2011, our colleague Francesco Silvestri from the University of Naples visited 3SR to deliver his 20-hour Soil Dynamics course to our master’s students. As always, the course was highly appreciated — thank you, Francesco!
Colleagues from Tensar visit 3SR
We have recently started a collaborative project with the company Tensar, aimed at studying the interaction between geogrids and granular soils using X-ray tomography. The researchers involved in this project are Olga, Cyrille, and Cino.

Two master projects are currently underway as part of this collaboration, and a PhD project may begin in the fall, funded by Tensar.

On January 20 and 21, three colleagues from Tensar — Yuli Doulala-Rigby, Mark Wayne, and Andrew Lees — visited us to discuss the project.
Palermo meets Grenoble
Following his visit to the University of Palermo in June last year, Cino invited Maurizio Ziccarelli, Marco Rosone, and Alessio Ferrari to Grenoble for two days (February 11–12) to exchange ideas about our respective work and explore possible collaborations.
We spent two very pleasant days at 3SR, with presentations from both sides and many interesting discussions.

New people in the team!

Since February, Arina Pautova, a student in the Master in Environmental Mineralogy (Graduate Program EUR IMACS, Université de Poitiers), joined our Geomechanics group and the ANR LOCCO project to prepare her master’s thesis. Arina is working on the finite element modelling of calcite dissolution in caprock formations in the context of CO₂ sequestration, under the supervision of Quentin Rousseau and Pierre Bésuelle.
A new PhD student has joined the group! After completing her master’s degree at the National Technical University of Athens, Georgia Laskari started her PhD at 3SR in January. Her project is titled “Micro-inspired study of damage and breakage in cemented granular materials”, and is supervised by Cyrille, Alessandro, and Cino.
Since January, we are also happy to host Shaohan Wang, a PhD student from Shandong University, China, who will stay at 3SR until the end of the year. Shaohan is studying soil cementation by Microbially Induced Calcium Carbonate Precipitation (MICP). His work at 3SR is supervised by Bruno, together with Antoine Naillon from the CoMHet team.
In January, Manuel Cárdenas-Barrantes joined our team for a one-year postdoc funded by the direction of 3SR. Manuel has recently applied for a CNRS researcher (CR) position with a project titled “Active Granular Materials”. It would be great to welcome him as a permanent member of our team — fingers crossed!

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 50

Sébastien Volcy — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 03:53:17 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

This marks the 50th edition of our regular bulletin! As we close out this rewarding period, this issue highlights the outstanding achievements and important milestones of the past trimester. Let’s pause to celebrate these successes together before enjoying a well-earned break!

Don’t hesitate to share this newsletter with your colleagues and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, feel free to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

GCER 2025-2026!

The kick-off meeting of the master program “Geomechanics, Civil Engineering and Risks” took place on September 10. This year, the students are 21. European students are back: this year we have two Italians and one French. They will start their research project in February next year — at least 9 of them will do it in our lab.

Publications!

Pinzón G., Andò E., Tengattini A., Viggiani (2025) – Does fabric evolution in granular materials depend on particle shape? An experimental study using x-ray tomography. Acta Geotechnica, 20(12):6289-6299.
Belachew M., Stamati O., Viggiani G., Frost J.D., Lees A.S., Wayne M.H., Doulala-Rigby Y. (2025) – Observation of Geogrid-Stabilized Aggregates Using X-ray CT. Géotechnique Letters, accepted November 2025.
El Ayoubi, A., Emeriault, F., Villard, P., & Sibille, L. (2025). Effects of grains characteristics and geogrid shape and rigidity on the behaviour of reinforced granular soil – 3D DEM study. Revue Française de Géotechnique, (184), 7.

Seminars, Workshops, Meetings and Conferences!

In October, Tomoya Nagayama gave a talk at the annual ALERT workshop!

A very nice edition of this conference took place in December in Goa, India. In this conference, about 200 researchers thoroughly discussed the physics and mechanics of granular materials. From our team, Gaël, Michalis, Mukesh, and Cino were lucky enough to be among them.

Since 2023, Orianne JENCK has been a member of the Scientific Committee of the 8th European Conference on Geosynthetics, along with six other academics from the French Chapter of the Int. Geosynthetics Society (Comité Français des Géosynthétiques). Under the theme “Technical Challenges and Environmental Imperatives for the 21^st Century”, the EUROGEO8 Conference took place in Lille, France, in September 2025. It gathered 850 delegates from 61 countries and 150 scientific presentations were delivered. The best papers were selected by the scientific committee for publication in a special issue of the “Revue Française de Géotechnique”.

The scientific committee during the Gala dinner

The scientific and organization committees during closing ceremony

Following the competition organized by the French Committee of Geosynthetics (CFG), a member of the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS), as part of the EuroGeo 8 conference held in Lille from September 15 to 18, 2025, Ahmad EL AYOUBI was ranked first and named the winner for his work entitled: “Effects of Grain Characteristics and Geogrid Shape and Rigidity on the Behavior of Reinforced Granular Soil – 3D DEM Study.”

Projects!

Bad news: ALLIANCE- in September, Cino went to Bruxelles to defend his ERC-Synergy proposal together with Gilles Pijaudier-Cabot, Gianluca Cusatis, and Paco Chinesta. Unfortunately, the proposal was finally not selected for funding. We have resubmitted it, and we hope to be luckier this time.
Good news: SAFARI- The European project SAFARI (Solid and Fluid Regime Transition of Granular Materials) has been selected for funding. This is a Staff Exchanges (SE) project under the HORIZON-MSCA-SE-2024 call. It is a 4-year project, which started on December 1^st. The researchers of our team involved are Gaël, Vincent, Alessandro, and Cino.
GENIUS- Doctoral Network on Energy Geostructures Integration: Buildings, Infrastructure and Underground Storage: Alice Di Donna is part of an international consortium which obtained a EU MSCA funding for a 15 PhD positions, 2 of which will be based at the Laboratoire 3SR and 3 others will see it involved. The project officially started in October 2025 and aims to develop the innovative technology of energy geostructures to drive the shift toward renewable heating and cooling, while training the doctoral candidates to become the leaders in conceptualization, design and implementation of energy geostructure applications.
New project with CEA- A new project has started with CEA, on the study of the microstructure of (U-Pu)O₂ agglomerates used for fuels – a PhD will start in October next year. Pierre, Cyrille, and Cino went visit the CEA center in Marcoule.

Visits!

Our colleague Takashi Matsushima, from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, has spent four weeks at 3SR working with Cino and Cyrille – from mid August to mid September.

(ex)PhD Students!

Michela Arciero, our PhD student in cotutelle between Grenoble and Cassino in Italy who worked on fiber-reinforced sand in the tomograph, successfully defended her PhD on October 28.

On November 17, Ahmad El Ayoubi successfully defended his PhD entitled: “Effects of Grain Characteristics and Geogrid Shape and Rigidity on the Behavior of Reinforced Granular Soil – 3D DEM Study”.

On December 16, Sébastien H.E. Volcy successfully defended his PhD entitled. He has worked on the characterization of soil deformability by in-situ penetrometer measurements.

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 49

Sébastien Volcy — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 12:10:00 +0000

Geo-Fellows,

This is the 49th edition of our bulletin—and the final one of the academic year! As we wrap up this enriching period, this issue celebrates the remarkable achievements and key milestones from the past trimester. Let’s take a moment to reflect on these successes together before we head into a well-deserved break!

Don’t hesitate to share this bulletin with your colleagues and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, feel free to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

Master “Geomechanics Civil Engineering and Risks 2024-2025″

The master defenses took place from June 30 to July 3. A total of 19 students defended their master projects, and 8 of them will now embark on a PhD (three at 3SR). A great barbecue on July 3 marked the end of the year — many thanks to Lou-Anne, who did a splendid job organizing it!
The new batch of master students will start on September 10 — they will be about 25, coming, as usual, from many different countries (including, again, Europe!)

Publications!

A. Mertz, A. Ajami, C. Dano, F. Emeriault, O. Jenck, C. Fernandez, A. Lebrun, M. Polo (2025) – Mechanical behaviour of model gas pipes buried into sand and loaded in surface. International Journal of Physical Modelling in Geotechnics 25 (4): 219–238.
Cui JZhang, Z., Li, Z., & Dias, D. (2025). Seismic stability of cracked rock slopes based on physics-informed neural networks. International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, 192, 106147.

Seminars, Workshops, Meetings and Conferences!

The project Yade/ON-DEM, submitted by Bruno Chareyre, has been selected by GRICAD for a Kraken’s Freeride. This ride aims at testing the newest HPC equipement in Grenoble and will contribute to ongoing actions in the framework of WG1 of the COST Network ON-DEM (CA22132), following a previous DEM benchmark. Yade will be allocated 44 nodes with 192 cores each, reaching a total of 8448 cores for massively parallel execution.

On April 28 and 29, a meeting over two half-days took place at 3SR with the four PI of the ALLIANCE project. The first half day was devoted to discussions with the four members of the Grenoble ALLIANCE team (Olga Stamati, Cyrille Couture, Alessandro Tengattini, and Filippo Masi from INRIA). The second half day the project was presented to (and discussed with) a number of researchers and PhD students from 3SR.
in May, Tomoya Nagayama and Cino Viggiani attended the 2025 International Conference on Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (ICBBG), in Tempe, Arizona. Tomoya gave a very nice (and very appreciated) talk titled “Plant root adaptation to changes in soil stiffness: characterization and future perspectives for the design of self-motile robots”.

in June, Cino Viggiani spent ten days as an invited professor at the University of Palermo, Italy. He gave a 10-hour course on “Recent developments in laboratory testing of geomaterials with emphasis on imaging processes”. He also explored possibilities of scientific collaboration with the researchers of Palermo. They are planning to visit us early next year to further explore these possibilities.
On the 25th of June, Alice Di Donna and her new post-doc researcher participated in the Unlocking Underground Energy workshop, in Torino, organised in the framework of the COST Action FOLIAGE. Alice presented their recent work on the thermal activation of a metro station in the city of Rennes, in France.
A delegation from 3SR, composed of Fabrice Emeriault, Orianne Jenck, Ritesh Gupta, Rami Chalhoub and Lucas Chinem Takayassu, took part in the 5^th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics – ISFOG – organized by the Gustave Eiffel University in Nantes from 9 to 13 June 2025.As the chair of the French Committee for Soil Mechanics ang Geotechnical Engineering (CFMS), under whose auspices the conference was organized, Fabrice Emeriault spoke at the welcome ceremony.Rami Chalhoub presented two papers, both related to the GEOLAB SAM-WT project and entitled: Floating wind turbine anchor piles under lateral multidirectional cyclic loading: experimenral investigation and Measurement of soil response to laterally loaded piles using distributed fibre optic sensing. Following the conference, some of us had the chance to visit the first offshore wind farm in France, as well as France’s very first offshore wind turbine (floating), installed off the coast of Saint-Nazaire.Moreover, our Colleague Christophe Dano was a member of the organizing committee. The latter as well as Orianne Jenck were theme editors of the proceedings, that are in open access here.

Projects!

The european project SAFARI has been funded. SAFARI stands for “Solid and Fluid Regime Transition of Granular Materials”. It is a “Staff Exchanges (SE)” project, funded in the framework of the “HORIZON-MSCA-SE-2024″ scheme. The participants from our team are Gaël Combe, Vincent Richefeu, Alessandro Tengattini, and Cino Viggiani. The project is currently in the stage of Grant Agreement Preparation, more details will follow soon.
The ANR project LOCCO has been funded. LOCCO stands for “Hydro-chemo-mechanical LOCalization phenomena in CO2 geological sequestration”. The participants from our team are Pierre Bésuelle, Quentin Rousseau, Alessandro Tengattini, Cyrille Couture, and Cino Viggiani.
The ERC-SYNERGY ALLIANCE proposal by Cino Viggiani has passed step 2. Cino will be interviewed, together with his 3 colleagues, on September 9 in Bruxelles. Wish him good luck!
Two distinct projects with our colleague Takashi Matsushima from Tsukuba University have been funded: one within the framework of the UGA International Research Booster Program (the project title is “Redefining soil mechanics from a granular perspective”), and one within the framework of the “Joint Initiatives in Research and Education of 2025 NTU-UGA-UT Trilateral Center” (the project title is “Developing modern framework and numerical tools for applied geomechanics problems”). The participants from our team are Gaël Combe, Cyrille Couture, Alessandro Tengattini, and Cino Viggiani.
Alice is among the founders of the new International Society for Energy Geostructures (ISEG). ISEG was officially created on the 25th of June during the Unlocking Underground Energy workshop to foster international collaboration and knowledge exchange in the rapidly growing field of energy geostructures – a technology at the intersection of geotechnical, structural, and energy engineering that has great potential for contributing to a sustainable energy future.

PhD Students!

Unfortunately, in May this year Pinelopi Panagiotaki had to quit her doctoral project for personal reasons, and she went back to Greece.
On June 2, Øyvind Torgersrud succesfully defended his PhD titled “Numerical and experimental analysis of fabric evolution in granular soil under cyclic loading”. His doctoral work was supervised by Jose Andrade (Caltech, USA), Hans-Petter Jostad (NGI, Norway), Edward Andò (EPFL, Switzerland), and Cino Viggiani at UGA.
Zilong ZHANG successfully defended his PhD thesis on June 6. His dissertation, entitled “Three-dimensional slope stability analysis and reliability assessment,” was completed under the supervision of Daniel DIAS. The examination jury consisted of Abed SOUBRA (President, Nantes Université), Marwan SADEK (Université de Lille), Julien BAROTH (Université Grenoble Alpes), and Dong SU (Shenzhen University).

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 48

Sébastien Volcy — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 12:38:06 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

Welcome to the 48th edition of our bulletin—the first of the calendar year! This issue showcases the outstanding achievements and key milestones from the past trimester. Let’s take a moment to recognize these successes together!

Don’t hesitate to share this bulletin with your colleagues and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, feel free to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

GCER 2024-2025- Internships!

In February, master internships started — 9 of which involve supervisors from our team: Alissar Alrifai with Alice, Lucas Coelho Alves Da Silva with Orianne et al., Abu Yousuf Farhad with Alice, Syed Murtaz Haider Kazmi with Dominique et al., Khuong Duy Nguyen with Cyrille and Cino Viggiani, Tae Sakuma with Cyrille and Cino, Shaymaa Shbib with Christophe et Florent Vieux-Champagne, Mohammad Shoushan with Olga et al., Jesus Alberto Silva with Christophe et al.

Visits!

Farewell to Yanyan Zhou and Suleyman Demir
On January 23, Yanyan Zhou went back to China — after one year at 3SR. Yanyan is a PhD student from Chang’an University, she has been using x-ray tomography to study the mechanisms of localized deformation and failure of loess upon deviatoric loading. Her work in Grenoble was supervised by Olga, Alessandro and Cino.

Also, on March 31, Suleyman Demir returned to Turkey after spending just over a year with our team. As a postdoctoral researcher, he collaborated with Alice Di Donna and Alessandro Tarantino (University of Strathclyde, UK) on the “Fundamentals of Thermo-Mechanical Behavior of Clays.”

Cino AND China In February, Cino visited (again!) China for two weeks — he was at Tsinghua University in Beijing and at Shandong University in Jinan.

Welcoming Mukesh Singh Bisht!

Mukesh Singh Bisht (an indian researcher who obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney in Australia) will join our team at the end of March (official start in April). He will stay with us for two years on a postdoctoral posiiton, in the framework of the ANR project PlantCom (of which Vincent R. is the PI for 3SR). Mukesh will work mainly on DEM simulations of particles that can fragment, and will also use X-ray tomography to characterize particles fragmentation.

Nicolas Espinoza, from the University of Texas at Austin is currently at 3SR as an invited visiting professor — he has arrived on March 7 and he will stay with us until April 4. Nicolas’ project at 3SR deals with crystallization-driven fractures in porous media. For that, he has interacted with Alessandro and Cino — plus a few colleagues at ISTerre. He will come back in May for a few experiments at NeXT Grenoble (ILL).

Publications!

Volcy, S.H.E., Sibille, L., Chareyre, B., Dano C., Hosseini-Sadrabadi H. (2025) – An adaptative discretization to model boundary value problems with discrete element method. Granular Matter 27, 41.
Cui J., Karapiperis K., Andò E., Viggiani G., Andrade J. (2025) – Deciphering Necking in Granular Materials: Micromechanical Insights into Sand Behavior during Cycles of Triaxial Compression and Extension. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids.
Nagayama T., Anselmucci F., Lenoir N., Sibille L., Mukunoki T., Otani J., Viggiani G. (2025) – Experimental measurement of root growth and root-soil interaction in a bilayered sand using x-ray tomography. Géotechnique Letters, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1-22.
Pinzón G., Andò E., Tengattini A., Viggiani (2025) – An x-ray tomography analysis of particle morphology influence on granular deformation processes. Open Geomechanics, article no. 2.
Demir, S., & Cabalar, A. F. (2025). Undrained Triaxial Compression Testing of Sand-Low Plastic Silt Mixtures. Transportation Geotechnics, 50, 101482.

Seminars, Workshops and Conferences!

GAIA, a novelty in the toolbox
GAIA, the Geomechanics Alliance in Asia, has been created as a platform for Asian students and young researchers in geomechanics to exchange knowledge and ideas, fostering the development of a lasting research network. The first GAIA Workshop took place from February 22 to February 24 in Atami, Shizuoka, Japan. Cino and Cyrille attended. Cino gave a keynote titled “Six memos for the next generation of researchers in geomechanics” — it has been recorded and can be found here.

March Seminars at 3SR: Advances in Geomechanics and Soil Model Visualization”

March 14: Nicolas Espinoza (the University of Texas at Austin, USA): Geomechanics: Recent Advances for Energy and the Environment.

March 28: Gertraud Medicus (University of Innsbruck, Austria): Animating soil models open educational resources for visualizing soil.

Celebrating three new successful HDR defenses at 3SR: Orianne, Alessandro, and Alice!

Orianne JENCK publicly defended her HDR (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches or accreditation to direct research) on 15 January 2025 on the university campus of Grenoble – Saint-Martin-d’hères, in front of a jury made up of Pierre BREUL from Clermont-Auvergne University (president of the jury), Emmanuel BOURGEOIS from Gustave Eiffel University (reviewer), Olivier DECK from Lorraine University (reviewer), Hussein MROUEH from Lille University (reviewer), Farimah MASROURI from Lorraine University (examiner) and Sabine ROLLAND DU ROSCOAT from Grenoble Alpes University (examiner).Dr. JENCK presented a summary of 20 years’ work (including 15 years at the 3SR laboratory) on the study of geotechnical structures using physical and numerical modelling, current works and projects, as well as the many research prospects.The presentation focused on the mechanical behaviour of geotechnical structures with strong soil-structure interactions and subjected to complex loads (cyclic, multi-axial…) linked to environmental and operating conditions, in the context of sustainable land-use planning (transport infrastructure in particular) and the development of low-carbon energy production structures (tidal turbines, wind turbines, etc.). The experimental and/or numerical approaches developed aim to make progress in understanding, analysing and modelling the behaviour of structures, with a view to developing tools and methods for designing and optimising structures and techniques.After the jury’s deliberations and the announcement of the award of the diploma, a convivial drink was offered to all those present, jury, colleagues and family.

On January 25, Alessandro succesfully defended his HDR, titled “Thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical couplings for the energy and the environment: a 5D imaging (3D+time+x-rays and neutron) and micro-to-macro modelling approach”.

On March 25, Alice succesfully defended her HDR, titled “Role of geotechnical engineering and geomechanics to underpin the development of energy technologies”.

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 47

Sébastien Volcy — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 02:15:35 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

Welcome to the 47th edition of our quarterly bulletin, marking the close of another fruitful calendar year. This issue highlights the remarkable achievements and milestones we’ve reached over the past trimester. Let’s take a moment to celebrate these successes together!

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season—feel free to share this bulletin with colleagues and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, feel free to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

GCER 2024-2025!

The kick-off meeting of the master program “Geomechanics, Civil Engineering and Risks” took place on September 9. This year, the students are 22. For the first time ever, there are no european students in the class (!). They will start their research project in February next year — at least 9 of them will do it in our lab.

Visits!

Meron (and Michela)
Meron Belachew, PhD student at GeorgiaTech in the US, stayed with us from the end of September until December 13. Her stay is part of a research collaboration program between UGA and Georgia Tech that has been ongoing for over a decade. Meron performed experiments advancing a probe with a conical tip and vortex-like into a sand by coupling the penetrating motion with a torsional one. These experiments were performed in our tomograph, to capture images of the sand particles as the probe advances. She was helped by Michela Arciero, our PhD student in cotutelle between Grenoble and Cassino in Italy, who was at 3SR for about three months to also perform her experiments on fiber-reinforced sand in the tomograph.

Meron&friends!

Visiting Tomoya in Genova In December, Luc and Cino went to Genova to meet Tomoya, who is spending one year at IIT (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) in the framework of his PhD in cotutelle between Grenoble and Genova. Two very nice days discussing with Barbara and Emanuela about the design of Tomobot, a new robot for penetrating the soil.

Publications!

Vego I., Richefeu V., Felekis G., Tengattini A., Viggiani G. (2024) – A simple discrete approach to explore the response of swelling and softening particles. Géotechnique Letters, accepted October 2024.
Zhang, Z., Zhang, T., Li, X., & Dias, D. (2024). Bayesian ensemble methods for predicting ground deformation due to tunnelling with sparse monitoring data. Underground Space, 16, 79-93.
Wu, H. T., Zhang, Z. L., & Dias, D. (2024). Prediction on compression indicators of clay soils using XGBoost with Bayesian optimization. Journal of Central South University, 1-16. NEW
Zhang, Z., Wang, B., Li, Z., Ye, X., Sun, Z., & Dias, D. (2024). Physics-guided neural network-based framework for 3D modeling of slope stability. Computers and Geotechnics, 176, 106801. NEW
Christophe Dano, Luc Thorel, Jean-Claude Dupla, Nadia Benahmed & Zheng Li (2024). Compilation des propriétés physiques et mécaniques du sable de Fontainebleau NE34 (Compilation of physical and mechanical properties for NE34 Fontainebleau sand). Revue Française de Géotechnique, 179 (6).

Seminars, Workshops and Conferences!

IS-Grenoble 2024
At the end of September, we hosted IS-Grenoble 2024 , the 5th International Symposium on Geomechanics from Micro to Macro, organized under the auspices of TC 105 (Geomechanics from Micro to Macro) of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. The symposium gathered about 270 attendees, 96 oral and 90 poster presentations, with 14 sessions and 5 Keynote Lectures. Furthermore, IS-Grenoble 2024 inaugurated the Named Lecture « Micro-to-Macro », which is the honor lecture of ISSMGE TC105. The lecturer, selected by the members of TC105, was our emeritus CNRS research director Jacques Desrues. Selected papers will be published in open access in the IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Sciences by IOP Publishing (Bristol, UK), to appear by the end of the year. A selection of pictures from the event can be found here.

ALERT-Geomaterials, annual meeting in Aussois
Michalis Komodromos gave a talk at the ALERT workshop (see the program here). Also, Alessandro was elected to the new ALERT Board of Directors, and Cyrille is now the ALERT representative and corresponding member for Grenoble.

Robodynamics in Soft Terrains
A very nice little workshop, organized by the University of Aachen, took place in October at the Abbey Rolduc in Kerkrade, the Netherlands. In this exciting workshop, about 30 invited researchers thoroughly discussed cross links between robotics, geotechnics, computational mechanics, and material science. Cino was lucky enough to be of them.

YADE
An online seminar about Yade-DEM is available on CASSINY platform (here), as part of Computer Physics Communications Seminar Series. The seminar follows this companion paper by Angelidakis et al. (2024).

New PhD students!

After her master in Grenoble, Pinelopi Panagiotaki has decided to embark on a PhD — again in Grenoble. She has just started working at 3SR on her project “Micro-inspired study of damage and breakage in cemented granular materials”, under the supervision of Cyrille, Alessandro and Cino.

Awards!

PhD prize
Our Ilija Vego was awarded the Ioannis Vardoulakis PhD Prize 2024 for his thesis entitled “Multi-modal investigation of hygroscopic granular media at high relative humidity“. Moreover, our Gustavo Pinzón was one of the three finalists for the prize, with his thesis entitled “Experimental investigation of the effects of particle shape and friction on the mechanics of granular media“. Warm congratulations to both!

Congratulations to our Ahmad El Ayoubi who was awarded first place in the competition organized by the Comité Français des Géosynthétiques (CFG) as part of the EuroGeo 8 conference, to be held in Lille from September 15-18, 2025. His research on “Effects of Grains Characteristics and Geogrid Shape and Rigidity on the Behavior of Reinforced Granular Soil – 3D DEM Study” was recognized with full coverage of his registration, travel, and accommodation by the International Geosynthetics Society (IGS). This achievement highlights the impactful work conducted in our laboratory and its growing visibility within the international scientific community.

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 46

Sébastien Volcy — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 09:12:19 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

Here we go with the 46th edition of our quarterly bulletin, as many of us are leaving on summer vacation. It provides an account of our great achievements over the last trimester of our academic year. Let’s just celebrate them!

Overall, enjoy and forward this letter to fellows and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, do not hesitate to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

GCER 2023-2024!

The 14 students of our international master program in geomechanics successfully defended their master thesis in the week of June 24.

Visits!

Short stay of two Brazilian Professors for UFRJ – Rio de Janeiro

From 10 to 21 June 2024, we received the visit of Prof. Maria Cascao and Prof. Marcio Almeida, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) in Brazil. This visit occurred in the frame of the ongoing French-Brazilian CAPES-COFEBUB project, devoted to marine and terrestrial geotechnical solutions for energetic transition. The 3SR lab and Université Gustave Eiffel are involved from the French side.

One objective of the scientific stay was to interact with Vincent Richefeu, regarding numerical modeling of submarine debris flows, to complement a physical study being currently performed in the geotechnical centrifuge facility at UFRJ, and to prepare the forthcoming one-year stay at the 3SR lab of a Brazilian PhD candidate working on the topic.

Experimental campaign at the Technical University Darmstadt in Germany

Two members of our team, Rami Chalhoub (PhD candidate) and Khayri Al Katabi (Master intern) spent two intense months at the Technical University (TU) of Darmstadt in Germany, from April to June 2024, conducting the experimental campaign of the GEOLAB-SAM-WT project. Christophe Dano and Orianne Jenck, in charge of the project, shortly visited the site. The SAM-WT project, led by the 3SR lab (Geomechanics team), is entitled “Shared Anchor under Multidirectional Cyclic Loading for Floating Wind Turbines”. It involves conducting large-scale loading tests on a model pile in the pit of the Geotechnical Institute of TU Darmstadt. The project is funded by the European Union H2020 GEOLAB program and gathers the 3SR lab, the Gustave Eiffel University (Nantes and Marne-la-Vallée Campus), and the TU Darmstadt.This experimental phase promises scientific advances in knowledge of the behavior of anchor piles under complex loading, which our scientists are eager to share and promote in future presentations and scientific publications.

Fostering scientific ties with Phayao in Thailand

On May 7, our team received a Thai delegation led by Suriyavut PRA-AI, formerly PhD student in the lab, from the University of Phayao in Thailand. The aim was to promote scientific exchanges between our two universities in the geotechnical field.

Cino in Shandong

Cino spent about one month (from May 19 to June 15) at Shandong University in China, as an adjunct chair professor. During his stay in the Middle Kingdom, he also gave the opening lecture at GeoShanghai 2024.

Cino, giving the talk.

With Shandong PhD students.

From Grenoble to Australia

In July, Alessandro and Cino were invited to join the Sandless workshop in Sydney, Australia. Among the participants in the workshop, there were also a few former PhD students from our group (Angela Casarella, Max Wiebicke, and Ilija Vego) as well as a Master student from this year (Enzo Louvard, who did his master project at Sydney University).

Nice colleagues

Weird colleague

Publications!

Yade-DEM developers published a milestone paper presenting selected features released in recent years, with co-authors from thirteen different universities and research institutes.Angelidakis et al., YADE – an extensible framework for the interactive simulation of multiscale, multiphase, and multiphysics particulate systems. Computer Physics Communication, DOI:10.1016/j.cpc.2024.109293.

Perrotta L., Vitale E., Arciero N., Roubin E., Tengattini A., Russo G., Viggiani G. (2024)- Microstructural insights into the mechanical behavior of Lightweight Cemented Soils using X-ray microtomography. Géotechnique Letters.

Rossi C., Tengattini A. Viggiani G. (2024)- A constitutive model for lightly cemented granular materials. Computer and Geotechnics (accepted in June 2024, to be published online soon).

Oji, U. K., A. Tengattini, L. Helfen, I. Manke, R. Cubitt, and N. Kardjilov (2024)- Polarized neutron imaging at NeXT (neutron and x-ray tomograph) at Institut Laue Langevin. Review of Scientific Instruments 95, no. 6.

Nemati, Arash, Bratislav Lukić, Alessandro Tengattini, Matthieu Briffaut, and Philippe Séchet. Towards in-situ water quantification via neutron imaging: insights from NeXT-Grenoble. Measurement Science and Technology 35, no. 7.

Martell, J., C. Alwmark, R. Woracek, S. Alwmark, S. Hall, L. Ferrière, L. Daly et al (2024)-Combined neutron and x‐ray tomography—A versatile and non‐destructive tool in planetary geosciences. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 129, no. 2.

Felicetti, Roberto, Ramin Yarmohammadian, Stefano Dal Pont, and Alessandro Tengattini (2024). Fast vapour migration next to a depressurizing interface: A possible driving mechanism of explosive spalling revealed by neutron imaging. Cement and Concrete Research.

Seminars and Conferences!

On Friday 14 June, just after the traditional weekly “Croissant” break, Prof. Marcio Almeida and Prof. Maria Cascao both gave us a joint talk, respectively on “offshore geotechnical solutions: from centrifuge modeling to applications to torpedo anchors” and on “offshore geotechnical solutions: from centrifuge modeling to applications for wind farms foundations“.

On April 29, Ali Sadeghi, from Twente University, gave a talk on “Soft Robotics Confronting Hard Soils: Overcoming Exciting Challenges“.
3SR was at the 12th edition of JNGG (Journées Nationales de Géotechnique et de la Géologie de l’ingénieur), in Poitiers, from June 25 to June 28, through Fabrice EMERIAULT, Orianne JENCK, Antoine MERTZ, Ahmad El AYOUBI and Sébastien VOLCY. Three talks were given: on “mechanical behaviour of models gas pipelines buried in a granular material” by Antoine, on the “Investigation of interactions between a granular medium and a geogrid at loval scale” by Ahmad and on the “Limit Service State analysis through a penetrometer-based test” by Sébastien.

The 3SR delegation at the JNGG.

Awards!

Alessandro has been appointed Junior member of the IUF (Institut Universitaire de France) for 5 years. He is the first 3SR researcher ever to be appointed to the IUF. During the related period, Alessandro will benefit from a 2/3 teaching discharge, and he will get €15,000 per year to develop its project on “Thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical couplings for energy and the environment: a 5D imaging approach (3D+time+X-rays and neutrons) and micro-macro modelling“.

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 45

Sébastien Volcy — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 13:22:02 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

Here we go with our first newsletter of the year, the 45th edition of our quarterly bulletin. It provides an account of the road covered since our last publication. Let’s pause to celebrate the milestones we’ve accomplished together.

Overall, enjoy and forward this letter to fellows and friends!

Anything you want to share in the next newsletter? Please, do not hesitate to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

PhD graduates

Chiara ROSSI successfully defended her PhD on March 12. Her doctoral project was entitled “A micro-mechanical approach to cemented granular materials”, and was supervised by Alessandro TENGATTINI, Cino VIGGIANI, and Pierre BÉSUELLE. The Jury was composed of Ivo HERLE (Technische Universität Dresden), Erika TUDISCO (Lund University), Francesca CASINI (Universita’ degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata), Gael COMBE (Université Grenoble Alpes) and Antoine NAILLON (Université Grenoble Alpes).

GCER 2023-2024!

Four (4) students of our master program in geomechanics have started working on their research projects in our team: Khayri AL KATABI (supervised by Orianne JENCK), Yoshiki MIYASAKA (supervised by Cyrille COUTURE), Pinelopi PANAGIOTAKI (supervised by Olga STAMATI and Cino VIGGIANI), and Renan TONOLLI (supervised by Cyrille COUTURE, Alessandro TENGATTINI and Cino VIGGIANI).

Visits!

In early February, our Japanese colleague Ryunouske KIDO left 3SR — after almost one year as a visiting professor. Ryunosuke has just started working at Hiroshima University as an associate professor — previously an assistant professor at Kyoto University.
Yanyan ZHOU, PhD student at Chang’an University in China, arrived on January 8 and will stay with us for one year. She will play with triaxial testing and X-ray imaging to investigate the link between changes in the micro fabric of loess and strain localization in the material. She is working under the supervision of Olga STAMATI, Alessandro TENGATTINI, and Cino VIGGIANI. For those wondering what it is, loess is a predominantly silt-sized sediment formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust (from Wikipedia).
Suleyman DEMIR (cf. picture below) joined our Geo team at the beginning of last December as a post-doc researcher. He is staying with us for 16 months, working with Alice Di DONNA and Alessandro TARANTINO (University of Strathclyde, UK), on “Fundamentals of thermo-mechanical behaviour of clays”.

Events!

On March 15, Vincent RICHEFEU and Cino VIGGIANI went to Montpellier for the kick-off of the project PlantCom (Plant comminution: from cells to process), funded by the ANR. From 3SR, the project includes Vincent, the PI for Grenoble, Cino, and Gael.
The first workshop organized in the framework of the COST program ON-DEM will take place in Aalto (Finland) from the 14th to the 16th of May. The first day includes a training session on Yade-DEM organized by Bruno CHAREYRE, Vasileios ANGELIDAKIS, and Katia BOSCHI.
An orientation meeting has lately gathered all the geomechanics team members.

Publications!

Nguyen, T. K., Vo, T. T., Nguyen, N. H., & Combe, G. (2024). Variability and loss of uniqueness of numerical solutions in FEM× DEM modeling with second gradient enhancement. International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics.
Nguyen, T. K., Desrues, J., Vo, T. T., & Combe, G. (2024). Macro-micro analysis of ground response to circular tunnel excavation in granular media. European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering, 1-19.
Recent developments related to homogeneous boundary conditions on arbitrary sets of DEM particles are described in “Uniform Boundary Conditions on MODELS of Spherical Particles through Alpha Shape Surface Tracking and Laguerre-Voronoi Diagrams“, published by Gary PEKMEZY, Bruno CHAREYRE, and David LITTLEFIELD in Computer Physics Communication (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2024.109214). The method is freely available as a module of Yade-DEM software, and it is already in use at 3SR by Théo Dumas (with also a paper in preparation).
Al Tfaily, B., Sibille, L., Hosn, R. A., & Bennabi, A. (2024). Prediction ability of discrete element model of loose granular media subjected to complex loadings. Powder Technology, 433, 119251.

Seminars!

On March 29, Lev TRUSKINOVSKY (Laboratoire PMMH, Paris) gave a very inspiring talk on “Mesoscopic discrete-continuum approach to crystal plasticity“–We’ve learned that plasticity is discrete, in nature!

New material!

A new experimental device was installed in the Eiffel building, in February. Kindly donated by INERIS, the 1g ground motion simulator aims to investigate soil-structure interactions when instabilities occur. It completes the 3SR geotechnical experimental stock.

The new jewel !!!

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 44

Sébastien Volcy — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 19:41:41 +0000

Dear Geo-Fellows,

As we gear up for the holiday season and prepare to bid adieu to an eventful year, Edition 44 of our newsletter is a testament to the incredible journey we’ve shared over the last three months. Let’s take a moment to revel in our collective achievements, relish the milestones, and share in the anticipation of what lies ahead.

Please colleagues, enjoy and forward this letter to fellows and friends.

If you have something you want to share in the next newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

PhD graduates

On December 14th, Marylin SARKIS defended her PhD thesis on “Caractérisation micro-mécanique des contacts pour la prédiction de propriétés macroscopiques du sable bio-cimenté ” under the supersion of Christian GEINDREAU, Fabrice EMERIAULT and Antoine NAILLON. The jury was composed of Pierre PHILIPPE (INRAE, Aix-en-Provence), Anh Minh TANG – (École des Ponts ParisTech), Gaël COMBE (Université Grenoble Alpes), Hannelore DERLUYN (Univ Pau & Pays Adour) Annette ESNAULT FILET (Soletanche Bachy).
On 4th of December Lu AN defended his PhD thesis whose title is “Analyse de la stabilité des barrages en terre à l’aide d’approches basées sur l’apprentissage automatique” under the supervision of Daniel DIAS, Laurent PEYRAS, Claudio CARVAJAL, Orianne JENCK and Pierre BREUL. Farimah MASSROURI (Université de Lorraine), Jean-Michel PEREIRA (École des Ponts ParisTech), Alaa CHATEAUNEUF (Université Blaise Pascal) and Julien BAROTH (Université Grenoble Alpes) took part in the jury.

GCER 2022-2023!

The kick-off meeting took place on September 11. This year, the students are fewer than last year — they are 14. For the first time ever there are no italian students in the class (!). They will start their research project in February next year.

ALERT-Geomaterials, annual meeting in Aussois!

One of the sessions of the workshop (Sept. 25 to Sept. 27) was co-organized by Cino (“Anisotropy in geomaterials: theory, experiments and modelling“, see https://alertgeomaterials.eu/alert-workshop/).

The doctoral school (Sept. 28 to Sept. 30) was co-organized by Félix (“Machine Learning in Geomechanics“, see https://alertgeomaterials.eu/alert-doctoral-school/).

PhD prize!

Our Angela Casarella was one of the three finalists for the Ioannis Vardoulakis PhD Prize 2023 for her thesis entitled “Multi-scale investigation of the thermomechanical behaviour of non-active clay“. Warm congratulations to her!

Publications!

Barés J., Cárdenas-Barrantes M., Pinzón G., Andò E., Renouf M., Viggiani G., Azéma E. (2023) – Compacting an assembly of soft balls far beyond the jammed state: insights from 3D imaging. Physical Review E 108, 044901-1-1.
Seo D., Tengattini A., Viggiani G., Buscarnera G. (2024) – Experimental and Analytical Assessment of Fracture Criteria for Non-Spherical Sand Grains. Granular Matter, Granular Matter 26, 1.
Pan J., Pinzón G., Wang R., Andò E., Viggiani G., Zhang J.M. (2024) – Lessons learned from matching 3D DEM and experiments at macro, meso and fabric scales for triaxial compression tests on lentils, JMPS, accepted November 2023.
A benchmark study of 8 different open-source codes for DEM has been accepted in Computer Physics Communication. The paper, entitled “Comparing open-source DEM frameworks for simulations of common bulk processes” involves Robert Caulk, Vasileios Angelidakis, and Bruno Chareyre for the Yade-DEM part and is here.

Conferences!

Michela Arciero and Cino attended to IS-PORTO 2023, the 8th International Symposium on Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials, held from the 3^rd to the 6^th September 2023 in Porto. Michela gave a talk.
Bilal Al Tfaily presented his work titled “A 3D discrete element model for studying soil-structure interaction on shallow foundations subjected to seismic loads” at the XVII International Conference on Computational Plasticity, COMPLAS 2023, held in Barcelona, Spain, from 5th to 7th September 2023. An image of his numerical sample of Ticino sand is presented below.

Seminars!

On October 5, Filipo Masi gave a talk on Thermodynamics-based Artificial Neural Networks (Masi et al. 2021; Masi and Stefanou, 2022) which embed the fundamental laws of thermodynamics directly into their structure, thus ensure thermodynamically consistent predictions.

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 43

Sébastien Volcy — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 07:11:36 +0000

Welcome back, geomechanics enthusiasts!

After a well-deserved summer vacation, the whole geomechanics is back into the world of geomechanics, eager to dive back into running experiments, conducting simulations, tackling new challenges, exploring the intricate mechanics of the Earth’s subsurface, teaching courses that inspire the next generation…

This 43rd edition of our newsletter is to remind us of where we left off and a spirited preview of where we shall resume our journey. Find all the news in the 43rd edition of our newsletter. Please forward this letter to colleagues and friends. Enjoy!

If you have something you want to share in the next newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

Visits

Our colleague Takashi Matsushima, from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, has spent two weeks at 3SR working with Cino. They are working together on a textbook on soil mechanics, which they hope to finalize within the next two years. They had a lot of fun as evoked by the captivating picture below.

PhD graduates!

On June 28th, Antoine MERTZ defended his PhD thesis titled “Comportement de conduites de gaz enterrées et soumises à des charges de surface”, under the supervision of Fabrice EMERIAULT, Christophe DANO, and Orianne JENCK. The jury was made up of Prof. Pascal VILLARD as president (Université Grenoble Alpes, France), Jean-Claude DUPLA (Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, France), Olivier DECK (Ecole des Mines Nancy, France), Luc THOREL (Univ. Gustave Eiffel Nantes, France), Fabrice EMERIAULT (Grenoble INP, France).

On July 7th, Imane Salama defended her Ph.D. thesis on “Ageing of geomaterials adjacent to foundation elements” under the supervision of Christophe DANO and the co-supervision of Jelke DIJKSTRA (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden). The members of the jury were: Fabrice EMERIAULT as president (Grenoble INP, France), Pierre BREUL (Univ. Clermont Auvergne, France), Philippe REIFFSTECK (Univ. Gustave Eiffel Marne-la-Vallée, France), Mahdia HATTAB (Univ. Lorraine Metz, France), Christophe DANO (UGA, France).

GCER 2022-2023!

The 2022-2023 class of master students defended their research project in the last week of June 2023. Out of these 24 students, 9 of them will embark on a PhD this fall — of which 3 in our lab: Elena Ilari, Hilario Greggi, Ali Kazemnadi.

New PhD students!

In October 2023, our former master student Tomoya Nagatama will start his PhD project “bio-inspired soft robotics for underground exploration” under the supervision of Cino in Grenoble and Barbara Mazzolai (Instituto Italiano di Tecnologia). Nicolas, Luc, and Bob are also involved in this project.
Hilario Greggi will start also his PhD on the subject titled “Image analysis of simultaneous X-ray and neutron tomography of fluid flow in geomaterials” under the supervision of Alessandro TENGATTINI (UGA), Olga STAMATI (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility), Stéphane ROUX (ENS Paris-Saclay).

Events!

On May 10-12, Ilija, Pierre, Chiara, and Cino attended a symposium dedicated to the memory of Prof. G.N. Pande: Numerical Analysis of Geomaterials, in Assisi, Italy.
On June 19-23, Gustavo, Ilija, and Cino attended a workshop at the Lorentz Center, in Leiden, Netherlands. This workshop was co-organized by Cino.
On July 5-7, Cino was invited to deliver the opening lecture (in Italian!) at a geotechnical conference in Palermo.

Publications!

3SR has added one more publication to its contribution to science:

Vego I., Tengattini A., Lenoir N., Viggiani G. (2023) – The influence of water sorption on the microstructure of a hydro-sensitive granular material (couscous) deduced from simultaneous neutron and x-ray tomography. Granular Matter, 25, 65 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-023-01356-5.

Courses!

In August 2023, Cino gave a eight-hour on-line course on “Advanced Experimental Geomechanics” to the PhD students (about 50) of Shandong University in China.
A 3-day short course on DEM and Yade is offered as a satellite event of the DEM9 conference.
It will cover basics of DEM and Yade usage, multiphysics couplings, and complex shapes.
The instructors are Bruno Chareyre (from our lab 3SR), Robert Caulk (INRIA Grenoble), and Vasileios Angelidakis (Univ. Erlangen-Nuremberg). For more details, please see the flyer below or click here.

Seminars!

On April 27, Jean Lerbet (from Université d’Évry Val d’Essonne) gave a talk (in French) about “l’écriture intrinsèque des lois de comportements des milieux discrets”. More information in here.
On May 4, Pin Zhang (Royal Society-Newton International Fellow, University of Cambridge, UK) gave a talk about “Data-Driven Modelling for Discovery and Solution of Partial Differential Equations”. More information in https://3sr.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/fr/actualites/zhang-pin

Prizes!

Olatoundé Alexandre YABA was awarded the BOUSSINESQ Prize 2023, attributed by the French Committee for Soil Mechanics (Comité Francais de Mécanique des Sols – CFMS) in recognition of his PhD work on “Improvement of Railway Trackbeds using Geogrids Analysis of Mechanical Behaviour, Settlement Reduction and Increase in Effective Bearing Capacity”.

The BOUSSINESQ Prize is assigned every two years and aims to distinguish the author of the most remarkable thesis, completed in a French institution, on one of the subjects concerning the CFMS, namely soil mechanics, geotechnics, and specific techniques concerning works in interaction with the ground.

The PhD thesis was prepared at the 3SR Lab, in cooperation with SNCF Réseau, between 2019 and 2022, under the direction of Fabrice EMERIAULT, the co-supervision of Orianne JENCK and Jean-François FERELLEC (from SNCF Réseau).

Congratulations on his well-deserved success! Wishing him continued achievements and joy in his journey ahead.

New personnel!

We welcome Cyrille Couture as an Assistant Professor (Maitre de Conférences) at UGA in Laboratoire 3SR. We can’t help but notice his exceptional and distinctive style – a haircut that truly sets him apart! With a sharp intellect and a flair for individuality, we have no doubt that Professor Couture will bring a fresh perspective to our community and make an impact that’s as unique as his haircut.

Sad news!

It is with great sorrow that we learned of the death of Patrick Selvadurai on July 20, 2023. Patrick was a fantastic scientist in geomechanics, and a good friend of many of us. For a longer biography, and a place online to pay respects, please visit the Dignity Memorial website.

Grenoble Geomechanics Newsletter No. 42

Sébastien Volcy — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 11:14:19 +0000

As the famous Albert Einstein once said, ‘The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.’ This quote perfectly captures the spirit our Geomechanics Group has been in these two last months. Whether you’re a scientist, a researcher, or simply someone who is curious about the latest developments in Geomechanics, we’ve got you covered here. Find all the news in the 42nd edition of our newsletter. Please forward this letter to colleagues and friends. Enjoy!

If you have something you want to share in the next newsletter, please do not hesitate to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr.

Visits

Dr Akihiko KONDO, from Port and Airport Research Institute (PARI) in Japan is with us at 3SR for three months. He and Dr. Gaël Combe plan to conduct collaborative research to apply the mechano-luminescent grains technique developed in PARI into “1g2e”, a unique shear device for 2D granular assemblies in 3SR. In this single one experiment, both the localization phenomenon of the strain field and the instantaneous generation and disappearance of stress chains and their transitions, and consequently a detailed description of deformation and failure mechanisms in granular materials can be obtained.
A group of researcher and PhD students from the University of Hamburg, by the names of Marius Milatz, Michail Komodromos and Dennis Heinrich visited us within the two first weeks of April. They mostly played with our computed tomography scanner while performing triaxial tests whose results will be used as input in numerical models. Marius Milatz used also a custom-built miniaturised direct shear apparatus to look inside the shear behaviour of unsaturated granular materials on the grain and pore scale.

We have Laura Perrotta, from Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Italy here with us at 3SR, to perform in-situ XR micro-CT tests on Lightweight Cemented Soil and image analysis of the results. Laura is a PhD student in Mathematical and Physical Sciences for advanced Materials and Technologies. She will be here for 2 months, from March, 27 to May, 27.
Over the program ECOS Norte Perou “NUMOTOS”, Dominique Daudon spent 2 weeks, by mid-march 2022, in Lima at the Pontifica Universidad Catolica del Peru (PUCP), with Prof Sandra Santa Cruz and Paola Ita, a PhD student, to participate to the first seismic testing of 2 Dry Stone Retaining Walls (DSRW) on a vibrating table of the PUCP civil engineering department. As no literature has been encountered on similar walls testing, experimental campaings were really expected with great impatience. Despite the limits of the campaign, the experimental results demonstrated the positive effect of reinforcing the walls with a larger number of through stones, and the capability of the Yade numerical model to anticipate the experimental results. This peruvian journey follows the one of last July 2022 with Florent Vieux Champagne (3SR-RV), where static tests of 9 DSRW were performed to evaluate the fragility curves of 3 reinforced walls, and to calibrate the Yade DEM numerical model. Paola Ita will join us in 3SR this summer.

PhD graduates!

On March 14th, Gustavo Pinzon defended his PhD thesis titled “Experimental investigation of the effects of particle shape and friction on the mechanics of granular media”, under the supervision of Cino Viggiani, Edward Andò, and Alessandro Tengattini. The jury was made up of Prof. Farhang Radjai (Université de Montpellier, France), Prof. Jean Michel Pereira (École des Ponts ParisTech, France), Prof. Gaël Combe (Université Grenoble Alpes), Prof. Catherine O’Sullivan (Imperial College London, UK), Prof. Antonio Gens (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya), and Prof. Stephen Hall (Lund University, Sweden).

On March 22nd, Jiamin became a doctor of Grenoble Alpes University as she defended her thesis titled “Numerical analysis of the rigid inclusions soil reinforcement technique” under the supervision of Daniel DIAS and Orianne JENCK. The members of the jury were Anne PANTET (Université de Normandie – Le Havre), Emmanuel BOURGEOIS (Université Gustave Eiffel), Pascal VILLARD (Université Grenoble Alpes), Luc THOREL (Université Gustave Eiffel), and Bastien CHEVALIER (Université Clermont Auvergne).

Later, on March 31st Ilija Vego defended his thesis “Multi-modal investigation of hygroscopic granular media at high relative humidity” under the supervision of Cino Viggiani, Alessandro Tengattini, and Edward Andò. The jury was comprised of Prof. Emilien Azéma (Université de Montpellier, France), Prof. José E. Andrade (California Institute of Technology, US), Prof. Karen E. Daniels (North Carolina State University, US), and Gaël Combe (Université Grenoble Alpes, France).

Publications!

The laboratory 3SR has contributed to two recent articles:

Mourlas C., Pardoen B., Bésuelle P., Large-scale failure prediction of clay-rock from small scale damage mechanisms of the rock medium using multiscale modelling, Int J. for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, vol. 47, n° 7, pp. 1254-1288, doi.org/10.1002/nag.3513.
Couture C., Bésuelle P., 2023, Three-invariants model and bifurcation analysis of deformation bands for a sandstone subjected to true triaxial loading paths, Acta Geotechnica, doi.org/10.1007/s11440-023-01811-w

Prizes

Warm congratulations go to Alessandro Tengattini who was awarded the ENSA Neutron Instrumentation and Innovation Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the devlopment of Neutron Imaging, in particular for building the NeXT-Grenoble instrument at the Laue-Langevin Institute (ILL) and improving its capabilities to the highest possible level.

Alessandro arrived at the ILL in 2015 as a postdoc when he started the construction of D50-Tomo, which later became NeXT-Grenoble. In 2018 he became Joint Scientist ILL/UGA before being awarded, in 2020, the Imaging for Mechanics Chaire at UGA/ILL, when he then became an Associate Professor at the University.