Author Archives: Arthur Fanara

Researcher/PhD position at the University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

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A call is open to award one researcher/PhD student grant within the I&D Project INTENT – Intelligent health monitoring of road infrastructures using bender elements embedded in pavements, reference 2022.06879.PTDC, funded by the Portuguese Science and Technology Foundation (FCT). The recipient is expected to conduct research in the field of Civil Engineering/Geomechanics at the University of Minho, in Guimarães, Portugal.

The grant holder will work at the ISISE Research Centre, University of Minho, to develop, test and produce Bender Elements (BE) sensors taking into account a set of specifications defined in a previous Task of the project. Subsequently, these sensors will be delivered and installed for field tests aimed at the continuous monitoring of road granular layers.

Job:  Research grant for MSc graduates, with an option to undertake a PhD

Research field: Civil Engineering/Geomechanics

Stating date: April, 2024

Application deadline: March, 20, 2024

More information on this link.

PhD Studentship at University of Dundee

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https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/leverhulme-doctoral-programme-for-regenerative-innovation-regnr8-i-the-city-as-a-living-lab-novel-monitoring-and-machine-learning-based-modelling-of-trees-for-the-bioengineering-of-the-urban-environment/?p170121

The city as Living Lab – Novel monitoring and ML based modelling of trees for the bioengineering of the urban environment.

Supervisory team: Dr. Matteo Ciantia (SSEN) Dr Alexandra Morel (School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law) Kevin Frediani (UoD Botanic Gardens) Dr. David Boldrin (James Hutton Institute)

Urban trees are an important nature-based solution to improve the social and environmental benefits of urban ecosystems, which are often not equitably distributed across urban landscapes. Applied research to date has largely focused on the biodiversity, carbon sequestration and wellbeing benefits of urban trees; however, their structural and physiological resilience to an increasingly stressful environment needs to be better understood to ensure safer infrastructure for public spaces. These stresses are manifold, including: elevated temperatures, air pollution, poor soil aeration, soil pollution, high pH and elevated soil salinity due to application of deicing salt in northern latitudes(1). Many of these stresses are expected to worsen with changing climate conditions, therefore, it is essential to improve practitioner understanding and monitoring of the physiological and structural responses of urban trees. Currently, hydraulic monitoring is being used to quantify tree water use in urban parklands to determine their contribution to urban hydrology as well as capture incidences of tree stress.  

The tree populations of our urban environments have been largely chosen based upon visual properties and their ease of cultivation. Apart from their ability to grow in the local soil and environmental conditions, there has been a lack of awareness or consideration of their functional traits (2). This project builds on existing research activities in the University of Dundee’s Botanic Gardens, which currently spans testing the residual properties of urban trees as resilient functional structures for the built environment to documenting the ecosystem services and functional traits of the University’s extant tree population. Already these research activities are bridging civil engineering and ecological understanding; however, the new learning from this project will help to develop metrics at the localised level that can inform decision makers and developers to select trees able to withstand these overlapping pressures, particularly in areas of high social deprivation. The project also pioneers an automated monitoring system employing dendrometer growth, soil properties, tensile strength sensors and rootplate deflection data (3) to provide early warnings of structural risks from environmental stressors, contributing to safer public spaces.

By leveraging the interdisciplinary collaboration facilitated by the Living Laboratory at the University of Dundee Botanic Garden, as well as our close working relationships with Dundee City Council, the Eden Project, and the James Hutton Institute, this project will consider:

  • 1. Establish whether observed stress responses can provide an early signal of changes in their biomechanical stability.
  • 2. Develop an early warning system for urban tree stress that would utilise real time measurements relevant to structural risk and physiological condition. Machine learning (ML) based modelling is envisaged.
  • 3. Assess the distribution of urban trees with tolerant traits across measures of social deprivation.

(1) Dmuchowski et al (2020) Strategies of urban trees for mitigating salt stress: a case study of eight plant species. Trees 36: 899-914
(2) Watkins et al (2021) Can Trait-Based Schemes Be Used to Select Species in Urban Forestry? Frontiers in Sustainable Cities. 3: 654618
(3) Marsiglia, et al (2023). Uprooting Safety Factor of Trees from Static Pulling Tests and Dynamic Monitoring. Geotechnical Engineering in the Digital and Technological Innovation Era (1 ed., pp. 218-225). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34761-0_27

Ioannis Vardoulakis PhD Prize 2024 – Deadline Extension

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The Bureau of ALERT Geomaterials has decided to fund the Ioannis Vardoulakis PhD Prize 2024. Since 2016, the PhD prize is entitled Ioannis Vardoulakis PhD Prize to commemorate Prof. Vardoulakis and his contributions to research and teaching in the field of Geomechanics.

The participation to the prize is open to all the PhD students with at least one official supervisor from one of the institutions belonging to ALERT, that have successfully defended their PhD thesis in 2023. The deadline for the applications is extended until 30th April, 2024.

The rules, agenda and further details are to be found on the ALERT website:
https://alertgeomaterials.eu/alert-phd-prize/

PhD Position at Nantes University

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The GEOMEC group of Nantes University (Heinlex campus in Saint-Nazaire, France) is currently seeking a PhD candidate for research on ‘Physical and numerical modeling of internal erosion in earth hydraulic structures’. We welcome applications from Master’s or engineering students who are interested in geotechnical laboratory testing and numerical modelling.

For more information, please refer to the PDF file. 

To apply, visit the website: https://theses.doctorat-bretagneloire.fr/sis/campagne-2024/modelisations-physique-et-numerique-de-l?key=P2B4FnkmwfkkdWpCRTsS9Wx7GT8M9MC6wJdhbZHXfpZXswkgj5cGhFKK

Multiphysical processes in granular media at the 2024 SES Annual Meeting

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Dear colleagues,

We are pleased to announce that we will offer a session on Multiphysical processes in granular media at the 2024 Society of Engineering Science Annual Meeting, which will take place in Hangzhou (China), 20-23 Aug 2024.

We look forward to your contributions!

The description of this minisymposium is shown in the attachment, and the full session details can be found here: 2024 SES Annual Technical Meeting. Please consider submitting an abstract to our session. The deadline for abstract submission is Apr. 1st, 2024. We are looking forward to meeting you here in Hangzhou.

All the Best!
Teng Man and all the co-organizers  

Minisymposium details:
Granular materials, such as those arising in industry and geophysics, displays a variety of unique phenomena, such as evolving volume compaction/dilation, jamming transition, fluid solid interactions, localized shear-banding, grain breakages, flow and contaminant transport in pore spaces, shear thickening/thinning, and granular segregation. The varied behavior of granular materials at the macroscopic, continuum scale stems from the rich physics at the microstructural scale; however, understanding the underlying microscale mechanics and physics and the connections between the particle and continuum scales remain unresolved issues of current research. Recent decades witness significant progress having been made in promoting various advanced experimental techniques, generalizing the rheological behaviors of granular flows, understanding the jamming transition physics of granular systems, and proposing multiple numerical techniques to quantitatively represent the thermal, mechanical, and chemical behaviors of granular materials.

This mini-symposium aims to highlight current state-of-the-art research in the mechanics and physics of granular systems across different scales ranging from the particle level to the continuum level and with different physical phases. We encourage submissions of abstracts with experimental, theoretical, and computational focuses. Topics of interest include advanced experimental techniques (such as particle tracking velocimetry and photoelasticimetry), visco-elasto-plasticity of granular solids, rheology and segregation of granular mixtures, contaminant transport within granular-fluid systems, as well as modeling work related to discrete-particle modeling, statistical mechanics of granular media, homogenization approaches toward continuum modeling, classical and higher-order continuum theories, finite-element modeling, multi-scale approaches, parallel computing architecture, and machine learning methods.

More information on this pdf.

PhD Position at the University of Dundee

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A fully funded 3-year PhD student position is now open in the Geotechnical group in the School of Engineering of University of Dundee (UK).

The PhD opportunity aims to quantify the uncertainties in the geotechnical design of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) and develop improved site investigation schemes for FOWTs. The developed framework will serve as a tool to economically optimise the effectiveness of site investigation for anchor design. This will enable improved (optimised) cost and risk estimations for different anchor concepts, thereby facilitating robust design decisions.

The candidate should have a background in Civil / Geotechnical / Geological / Energy Engineering. Contact: Dr Pengpeng He, phe001@dundee.ac.uk. More information on the pdf file.

LAST CALL for 14th ALERT Olek Zienkiewicz course – 22-26 April 2024

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The 14th ALERT Olek Zienkiewicz course 2024 will be organized by INRAE from April 22nd to 26th in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The title of the school is: “Hydro-mechanical behavior of geomaterials for civil engineering structures: Theoretical models, simulations, lab testing and risk analysis“

The content of the course will address the characterization and the modeling of the hydro-mechanical behavior of geomaterials from the microscale to the structure scale. You will find more details in the attached flyers both from scientific and practical point of view.

The school is free of registration fees and the lunches will be offered to participants. Please register BEFORE MARCH 15th accordingly: https://evento.renater.fr/survey/course-ed353-et-oz-c…-m1opux05

A web page with all the details is available at: https://recover.paca.hub.inrae.fr/zoom-sur2/oz-doctoral-course).

Assistant Professor of Geotechnical Uncertainty (Delft University of Technology)

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Delft University of Technology is seeking candidates for a new Assistant Professor of Geotechnical Uncertainty.

There is an increasing need to quantify the performance of geotechnical structures and infrastructures within a reliability-based framework, so that risks can be explicitly quantified for guiding effective mitigation measures. Of fundamental importance is the need to understand uncertainties and their impacts at the soil mechanical behaviour level and at the geotechnical site level, as an essential precursor to reducing the uncertainty in soil mechanical response as well as to understanding uncertainty propagation to the structure level.

The position is proposed to investigate soil mechanical material behaviour and geotechnical structure response, accounting for uncertainties relating to, for example, data, measurements, statistics, transformation from measured data to derived properties, and external (including environmental) loadings. The position takes into consideration the random, spatial and systematic components of uncertainty, as well as uncertainties relating to the cross-correlations of material properties, and it develops new solutions to better control and reduce the geotechnical uncertainty and risk in geotechnical assessments and construction processes.

More details can be found at link.

Last day for applications: 14 April 2024.