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!
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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 21st 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 1st. 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.
