2018 News & Events

The piece of artwork “Essere vento”, literally, “being the wind“, was revealed on the 4^th of December 2018 at the "laboratoire 3SR" in presence of the Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone himself.

Giuseppe Penone likes to work with natural elements and materials, moulding them, sculpting them, and sometimes trying to reproduce the action of nature, as in his famous piece of work “Essere fiume”, for which he sculpted a rock just the way the river did it.

When they first met in 2015 in an exposition at the art museum of Grenoble, Giuseppe Penone asked the researchers if they would be able to sculpt a sand grain. “You bet!” was the answer.

Using high tech imaging tools, the researchers in close collaboration with the artist, carefully selected the grains that would serve as models, as well as those that would be eroded micron after micron, using LASER beam machining, to shape them like the models, as closely as possible. A number of pair grains were fabricated, and in honour of this collaboration with the researchers from the "laboratoire 3SR" specialising in the microstructure of geomaterials, Giuseppe Penone has chosen to include a pair of twin grains in a 50 kg piece of art made of moulded concrete. The sculpture was offered to the art museum of Grenoble and will be kept at 3SR for 3 years.

This work is the result of a collaboration between Giuseppe Penone, Joël Chevrier (Néel Institute), Cino Viggiani and Edward Andò (laboratoire 3SR), and the MUL company in Toulouse.

Jacky Mazars and Félix Darve are amongst the main contributors to civil engineering sciences and solid mechanics. In honour of their (solid and non-linear!) career, their colleagues from the 3SR lab have invited collaborators and friends to pay tribute to their work in a two-sessions conference, the one dealing with geomechanics, the other one dealing with the vulnerability of civil engineering structures. Both will most certainly appreciate such a nice present just before Christmas!

The conference will be held in the Kilian amphitheatre on the 11^th and the 12^th of December.

All the details in the PDF programme

On the 24th of January 2019, the IRSTEA, the CEN and the ANENA organise a workshop on avalanches for high school students.

The researchers from Grenoble have long been involved in the study of avalanches, in particular in the modelling of snow as a granular material exhibiting a complex behaviour. This outreach day will consider the aspects in relation to risk and safety, avalanche prediction, protection infrastructures and the modelling of snow flows. In the afternoon, two parallel sessions will be held, the one dealing with the mechanical modelling of powder snow avalanches and dense snow avalanches, the other one dealing with climate change and the future of snow in ski resorts. During these sessions, the students will have the opportunity to interact with the speakers and ask their questions to researchers from the IRSTEA and the CEN (French Centre for Snow Studies).

Registrations are open until the 23rd of December 2018.

On the 22nd of October 2018, Mathias Tolomeo will defend his PhD entitled "Forces inferred from macroscopic loading and grain motion" (view the details of the PhD project)

This PhD project was supervised by Vincent Richefeu, Gaël Combe and Cino Viggiani (3SR lab).

The defense will take place at 2pm in room K118 at the LEGI.

The collaborative research platform PEI, dedicated to clean technologies and industrial processes, brings together students, researchers and industrials in an environment likely to favour the connexions between them.

The building was delivered in october 2015, and the platform was officially launched in July 2016 with the ambition of hosting education programmes, collaborative research projects, and startups.

After two years of efforts, PEI is now fully working, with almost 10 research projects in progress from 6 different laboratories on the campus, more than 100 hours of teaching at the master level for the past year, and since the beginning of 2018, 3 startups companies hosted, developing activities in industrial gas analysis, air purification, and the characterisation of complex fluid.

For more information about PEI, please visite the website here

On the 15th of June 2018, Deepak Kunhappan will defend his PhD entitled "Numerical modelling of long flexible fibres in inertial flows" (view the details of the PhD project)

This PhD project was supervised by Guillaume Balarac (LEGI) and Pierre Dumont (LGP2) in collaboration with Barthélémy Harthong (3SR)

This project was co-funded by the CNRS.

The defense will take place at 9 am in room K118 at the LEGI.

Online PDF

On the 4th of may 2018, Bratislav Lukic will defend his PhD entitled "Development of a full-field measuring technique for the characterisation of the dynamic tensile behaviour of concrete" (view the details of the PhD project)

This PhD project was supervised by Pascal Forquin and Dominique Saletti (3SR Lab)

The defense will take place in the Wilfried Killian amphitheatre at 9 am.

Online PDF