This is the 23rd edition of the GéoMécanique newsletter. After the summer break we are ready to begin the new academic year full of energy and fresh ideas! This new edition 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
People
Two members of the team are involved in a newly launched non-profit Open Access geomechanics journal entitled “Open Geomechanics”. You can check the website here: http://www.opengeomechanics.org
It aims for quality and not quantity of papers, and is now open for submissions! If you’re wondering why Cino resigned from the editorial panel of Acta Geotechnica, now you know…
Prof.r Gudmund Reidar EIKSUND has joined the Geomechanics Team for 1-year sabbatical period at 3SR. Gudmund is Professor at NTNU in Norway and his main research topics deal with offshore foundations (including for offshore wind turbines), from practical and numerical points of view. Welcome Gudmund !
PhD students Marcus Guadagnin and Eduard Puig left Grenoble to continue their research in Brazil and Barcelona, respectively, but don’t panic, Eduard will come back to the lab to see you and present the PhD defense.
Honors and Awards
Dorjan Dauti (thesis Tec21, supervised by S.Dal Pont) received the 3rd price award in the competition “Young Researcher” (prix Jeunes Chercheurs “Rene Huopert”) given by AUGC (Association Universitaire de Génie Civil).
Visits and conferences
Cino went to Hong Kong where he sat in the committee for the PhD defense of Xingyue Li (photo 1) and Huanran Wan (photo 2), both supervised by Jidong Zhao of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He also gave a talk at HKUST and met the current president of ISSMGE, Charles Ng (photo 3)
Photo 2: PhD defense of Huanran Wan
Photo 1: PhD defense of Xingyue Li
Photo 3: Cino and Charles Ng
In August, Cino gave a keynote lecture at the 41st Solid Mechanics Conference in Warsaw, Poland. He will also give a keynote lecture at IS-Atlanta 2018, to be held in September 2018.
Dorjan Dauti and Stefano Dal Pont attended the 36èmesRencontres Universitaire de Génie Civil from 20-22 June 2018 in Saint-Etienne where Dorjan presented the conference paper entitled “In-situ Neutron tomography and 3D numerical modeling of moisture distribution in concrete at high temperature“.
Dorjan Dauti attended and presented in the 6th European Conference on Computational Mechanics (ECCM) jointly organized in Glasgow with the 7th European Conference in Fluid Dynamics (ECFD) from 11-15 June 2018. The title of the presented work, coauthored by Stefano Dal Pont, Benedikt Weber and Matthieu Briffaut, was: Investigation of constitutive laws for modelling concrete at high temperature by the aid of neutron imaging.
Alessandro Tengattini and Maddi Etxegarai went to Australia to attend the11th World Conference on Neutron Radiography from 2 to 7 September 2018. Alessandro gave a talk entitled “Recent developments from NeXT-Grenoble, the Neutron and X-ray Tomograph in Grenoble” while Maddi presented the following work: “Investigation of hydromechanical processes in porous rock using 4D neutron imaging”.
Publications
The paper “Analysis of moisture migration in concrete at high temperature through in-situ neutron tomography” by Dorjan Dauti, Alessandro Tengattini, Stefano Dal Pont, Nikolaj Toropovs, Matthieu Briffaut and Benedikt Weber has been published in Cement and Concrete Research (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0008884618301613).
The paper “How does strain localise in standard triaxial tests on sand: revisiting the mechanism 20 years on” – by Jacques Desrues, Eddy Andò, Federica Mevoli, Laurent Debove and Cino Viggiani – has been published in the journal “Mechanics Research Communications”.
The article “Open-source support toward validating and falsifying discrete mechanics models using synthetic granular materials—Part I: Experimental tests with particles manufactured by a 3D printer.” by Ritesh Gupta, Simon Salager, Kun Wang and Waiching Sun was published in Acta Geotechnica in July 2018.
Miscellaneous
Voussoir Monobloc Compressible (VMC) is an innovative technology of precasted concrete tunnel linings integrating a layer composed of tube-shaped grains such that its compressible behavior is activated (Andra’s & CMC patent). Research study carried out in 3SR by M. Stasiak, G. Combe, V. Richefeu, P. Villard and J. Desrues concerns mechanical behavior of this brittle granular material paying special attention to grain crushing. DEM simulation of oedometer test shows high compressibility of material and progressive grains fragmentation (see the video below).