This is the 16th edition of the GéoMécanique newsletter. It contains the latest news regarding research publications, conference visits and other activities of the staff and students from the GéoMécanique group of Laboratoire 3SR (Sols, Solides, Structures – Risques). If you have something you want to share, please don’t hesitate to contact us at: geomecanique.newsletter@3sr-grenoble.fr. Please feel free to forward the letter to colleagues and friends, and let them know that they can subscribe by themselves here. Enjoy.
Publications
The paper “Intensity and volumetric characterizations of hydraulically driven fractures by hydro-mechanical simulations” by E. Papachristos, L. Scholtès, FV. Donzé and B. Chareyre has been accepted in the International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136516091730076X).
The paper “Infrared thermography of rock fracture” by Y. SALAMI, C. DANO and P-Y. HICHER has been accepted for publication in Geotechnique Letters (http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/jgele.16.00131).
The paper “An experimental study on the influence of the coordination number on grain crushing” by Y. SALAMI, C. DANO and P-Y. HICHER has been accepted for publication in the European Journal of Environmental and Civil Engineering.
Visits and conferences
From January 16 through January 20, Grenoble hosted the 1st Winter school on multi scale approaches and multiphysics couplings in fluid and solid mechanics, organised by Labex Tec21 (https://www.tec21.fr/winter-school/). This doctoral school was attended by 40 students coming from all over the world — including our PhD students Dorjan Dauti, Mathias Tolomeo and Ilaria Soriano. Some of the lectures were given by members of the GéoMécanique team (Jacques Desrues, Bruno Chareyre and Cino Viggiani). A practical session on granular and porous materials was also organised by Gaël Combe and Eddy Andò — see https://www.tec21.fr/education/granular-and-porous-materials/
Our colleague Itai Einav, professor at the University of Sydney (http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/people/itai.einav.php) visited the lab in January. On January 18 he gave a very nice talk on “Rice-quakes in crunchy soft matter”.
Our colleague Francesco Silvestri, professor at the University of Napoli (https://www.docenti.unina.it/FRANCESCO.SILVESTRI), spent a full week at 3SR giving a course on “Soil Dynamics and Nonlinear Site Response Analysis” to the students of the masters program “Geomechanics, Civil Engineering and Risks”.
People
Our former master student Ilaria Soriano is back in Grenoble. Ilaria is doing a PhD in cotutelle between Heriot-Watt University and the Université Grenoble Alpes. Her PhD project deals with the micromechanics of weakly cemented sand. After one full year in Edinburgh, she’s now going to stay six months or so with us at 3SR.
You might remember (see Newsletter No. 11) that last July Giulia Guida, PhD student at University of Cusano (Rome), came to 3SR for a week of experiments, crushing LECA particles in oedometric compression using x-ray tomography. Giulia is now back in Grenoble to analyse the results she got — she will stay with us for about three months.
Timos Papachristos has defended on February 8, 2017. His PhD entitled “A 3D hydro-mechanical discrete element model for hydraulic fracturing in naturally fractured rock”, supervised by Frédéric Donzé and Luc Scholtès. The jury members were Farhang RADJAI (CNRS, MIT), Jean SULEM (ENPC ParisTech), Pierre BÉREST (École Polytechnique, MINES ParisTech), Chloé ARSON (Georgia Institute of Technology), Hamid POURPAK (TOTAL S.A), Bruno CHAREYRE (Université Grenoble Alpes), Frédéric DONZÉ (Université Grenoble Alpes) and Luc SCHOLTÈS (Université de Lorraine).