Sols, solides, structures, risques

Research activities

The research activities of the CoMHet team focus on multi-scale mechanics and Multi-physical Couplings of Heterogeneous media. The materials and systems we study are essentially porous and/or divided media, made of deformable, milli- or micro-metric, ordered or disordered assemblies
of fibers or grains, with or without cohesion, with or without a surrounding fluid/soft matrix. The common objective of this work is to characterize, understand and model the microstructures, physics and mechanics of these media.
The activities of the CoMHet team are divided into three main research areas:



Our methodology consists in using a multi-scale and multi-physics approach through the implementation of cutting edge methods and tools for experimental, theoretical and numerical mechanics:
 

• Experimental mechanics: thermo-hygro regulated mechanical tests coupled with kinematic field measurements (particle tracking/(S)DIC) and 3D characterization of microstructures (X-ray microtomography). The mechanical set-ups used cover a wide range of loading types (static, cyclic, dynamic, multi-axial) and forces (5 N to 500 kN). In the particular case of X-ray microtomography, we develop protocols for the image acquisition and 3D analysis of complex microstructures.
• Theoretical and numerical mechanics: we develop and use discrete or continuous homogenization techniques, constitutive equations, analytical approaches at the interface between statistical physics and continuum mechanics, estimation of effective mechanical and structural
  properties with finite element, finite volume or discrete coarse-grained methods.

Recent publications