ALERT Geomaterials Workshop 2020

Session 1 “Forecasting landslide displacements”  – 28th September 2020

Coordinators: Sabatino Cuomo (UniSa), Jean Vaunat (CIMNE), Núria M. Pinyol (UPC)

Dear Colleagues,

the Workshop is organized in the framework of the agreement between ALERT Geomaterials and the international LARAM School (LAndslide Risk Assessment and Mitigation, University of Salerno).

Geomechanics-driven models will be presented, including issues like incrementally non-linear behaviour of soil, hydro-mechanical coupling, weathering process, rate- and thermal effects. These models are widely applied for slope analysis at local scale, especially for back-analysis of failures, individuation of the key factors for failure, investigation of triggering mechanisms, modelling of post-failure and tempo-spatial evolution of slopes. Contributions about small-strain approaches for cohesive soils, large-displacements approaches for slope failures evolving into flows, or landslide propagation analysis are welcome.

Engineering-oriented procedures will also presented in the context of landslide risk theory to provide relevant information for early-warning systems, urban planning maps, countermeasures against landslide movement and land control tools operational, both at slope scale and over wide areas.

The two classes of tools are really complementary and they should be ideally integrated to effectively tackle the forecasting of landslide displacements. And, in fact the Workshop aims at reinforcing the links between the scholars coming from ALERT and LARAM communities.

DEADLINE: 30th April 2020 to send title and abstract of presentations (only abstract respecting the format suggested by ALERT, can be accepted).

SUBMISSION: please send your abstract to: scuomo@unisa.it

Best regards, see you in Aussois

Sabatino, Jean and Nuria


Session 2 “ Machine Learning and Geomechanics ”  – 29th September 2020

Coordinators: Ioannis Stefanou (EC-Nantes) and Felix Darve (3SR)

Machine Learning (ML) is a promising ensemble of mathematical tools and methods that have already lead to astonishing results in science and technology.

The objective of this session is to demonstrate that machine learning can be used to bypass some of the current limitations of several experimental and numerical methods in the field of geomaterials, geomechanics and more generally in solid mechanics.

There is hope that this new approach may lead to more realistic, physics-based models with several applications in geo-energy resources (e.g. geothermal energy, oil and gaz extraction, …), in nuclear waste disposal, in CO2 sequestration, and in the prediction and prevention of natural risks (e.g. earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, rockfalls, snow avalanches, debris flows, …).

The session will consist of invited talks only. Renowned invited speakers will share their experience on ML showing the large perspectives of the method in solid mechanics and geomechanics.


Session 3 “Bridging the gap between experiments and modelling: from laboratory testing to material models prediction”  – 30th September

Coordinators: Béatrice Baudet (b.baudet@ucl.ac.uk) (University College London, U.K.), Federica Cotecchia (federica.cotecchia@poliba.it) (Politecnico di Bari, Italy), Cristina Jommi (cristina.jommi@polimi.it) (Politecnico di Milano, Italy) and (C.Jommi@tudelft.nl) (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)

At this point in time, when soil laboratory testing has advanced to the extent that we can determine the contact behaviour between two grains, while soils can be modelled at the microscale with realistic particle properties, it may be a good time to pause and ask: are we really aware of what aspects of the soil internal processes we are modelling? This day session attempts to address this. The morning is organized around sessions on laboratory testing providing evidence of a behavioural framework consolidated, natural and compacted soils, and assess how the different processes determine aspects of the behaviour. In the afternoon, examples of how some of that evidence is integrated in modelling are given. The morning and afternoon sessions will close with a 40-minute discussion.  

The sessions will be divided into: 1. Experimental evidence of physical processes in soils and their experimental characterisation, 2. Modelling micromechanical properties and processes with discrete mechanics, and 3. Continuum modelling of micromechanical processes with macromechanics. The modelling sessions should focus on models that actively account for experimental observations.

DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION: Abstracts are invited to be submitted to the organisers by 30th April 2020 (respecting the format suggested by ALERT). Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to give a presentation within the appropriate mini-session.    

Registration for the ALERT Workshop & School 2019 (last day reminder)

The registration for the ALERT Geomaterials Workshop and School 2019 is open now! Find the preliminary program of the Workshop and school here. Please read the hints in the registration form! After filling the form and pressing the button “Register”, a window will open with your invoice. Please print the window with the invoice for your records! You will also get an email with the registration data afterwards. In case of the registration of the ALERT members, the corresponding representative of the ALERT institution will receive the registration data too.

Link to the registration form (inscriptions closed)

The deadline for the registration is the September 18th! The accommodation in Aussois will be processed in the order of the registrations (see the hints in the registration form). Please note that the number of rooms in the CNRS “Centre Paul Langevin“ is limited.
See also hints on how to get to Aussois!

Registration for the ALERT Workshop & School 2019 (Reminder)

The registration for the ALERT Geomaterials Workshop and School 2019 is open now! Find the preliminary program of the Workshop and school here. Please read the hints in the registration form! After filling the form and pressing the button “Register”, a window will open with your invoice. Please print the window with the invoice for your records! You will also get an email with the registration data afterwards. In case of the registration of the ALERT members, the corresponding representative of the ALERT institution will receive the registration data too.

(inscriptions closed)

The deadline for the registration is the September 18th! The accommodation in Aussois will be processed in the order of the registrations (see the hints in the registration form). Please note that the number of rooms in the CNRS “Centre Paul Langevin“ is limited.
See also hints on how to get to Aussois!

Registration for the ALERT Workshop & School 2019 is open!

The registration for the ALERT Geomaterials Workshop and School 2019 is open now! Find the preliminary program of the Workshop and school here. Please read the hints in the registration form! After filling the form and pressing the button “Register”, a window will open with your invoice. Please print the window with the invoice for your records! You will also get an email with the registration data afterwards. In case of the registration of the ALERT members, the corresponding representative of the ALERT institution will receive the registration data too.

(inscriptions closed)

The deadline for the registration is the September 18th! The accommodation in Aussois will be processed in the order of the registrations (see the hints in the registration form). Please note that the number of rooms in the CNRS “Centre Paul Langevin“ is limited.
See also hints on how to get to Aussois!

ALERT Workshop 2019 – Call for abstracts

The ALERT Workshop 2019 (30th Edition) will be held in Aussois from 30th September to 2nd October, 2019. Abstracts can be submitted to the three sessions. Please submit your abstracts by email directly to the coordinators using the Workshop abstract form (doc). If you wish to publish your presentation after the Workshop on the ALERT website, do not forget to agree by ticking the corresponding box in the abstract form.

Since time for the presentations is limited, only a part of the submitted abstracts can be chosen for the oral presentations. Therefore, we invite you to submit your abstract as soon as possible. The presentation can also be submitted as a poster. The abstracts of the posters will be published in a separate booklet (ISSN registered).

The deadline for the abstract submission is April 30, 2019. For any communication about your participation to the workshops, please contact the coordinators of the workshop sessions directly.

ALERT Geomaterials Workshop 2019

Session 1 “Upscaling in Geotechnical Engineering”  – 30th September 2019

(session in honor of the 70th Anniversary of Roberto Nova),

Coordinators:

Claudio di Prisco (claudio.diprisco@polimi.it) and Cristina Jommi (cristina.jommi@polimi.it) (Politecnico di Milano, Italy), Claudio Tamagnini (Università di Perugia, Italy, claudio.tamagnini@unipg.it)

 
Objectives:

The session celebrates the 70th Anniversary of Roberto Nova, one of the founders of ALERT Geomaterials and a pioneer in several branches of theoretical modeling of the mechanical behavior of geomaterials and geotechnical structures.

The aim of the workshop is to present some of the most recent developments in geotechnical modelling, with particular emphasis on upscaling procedures to obtain fundamental insight on both the behavior of materials at the macroscale and of geotechnical systems at the megascale.

The session will include (i) constitutive modelling of the hydro-chemo mechanical behavior of granular bonded/structured/cemented soils, (ii) stability conditions for geomaterials and controllability theory, from localised to diffuse mode of failures, (iii) discrete element model analyses, and (iv) soil-structure interaction problems including macro-element theory.

ALERT Workshop session 2 – 1st October 2019:

The mechanics of root-soil systems: from microscopic to macroscopic approaches

Coordinators:

Evelyne Kolb (PMMH & Sorbonne Université, evelyne.kolb@upmc.fr), Luc Sibille (3SR & Université Grenoble Alpes, luc.sibille@3sr-grenoble.fr)

Outline:

The interactions between plant root networks and soils is a wide issue involving many communities from agronomy, soil science, biophysics to soil mechanics and civil engineering. Under non-stressful biological and chemical conditions, the root growth trajectory depends strongly on the mechanical strength of the soil and on the presence of obstacles at the root scale, as root apices must exert a growth pressure to overcome the resistance to deformation of the surrounding soil. Zones of high mechanical resistance are one of the most common physical limitations to soil exploration by roots, limiting the accessibility of the plant to water and nutrients. In turn, soil micro-structure is affected by the root development. Soil particles may be dragged by the root and, more generally, local soil deformations are induced by the root growth. The transfers of water between the soil and the plant as well as the root exudates and production of mucilage change locally the soil properties and modify the distribution of the aqueous phase in the porous network.  In addition, the mechanical properties of the soil are highly dependent on the root architecture, as the hierarchical structure formed by roots traps the soil and increases its resistance to shear, reinforcing the stability of slopes or limiting the erosion at river banks.

The objective of this session is to gather people around the mechanics of root-soil systems at different scales and with various experimental techniques, modelling or theoretical approaches: at the field scale to assess the contribution of plant roots to the mechanical stability of soil layers, at the scale of the root system for characterizing, simulating and imaging the whole root architecture and the reorganizations of the soil produced by the root growth, at the scale of the root apex to understand the mechanical feedback between a slender growing object and grains and pores of the soil matrix with given packing fractions and textures.

The session will consist of invited talks, nevertheless a slot will be kept for some flash talks (typically 4 min and 2 slides per speaker) providing an overview of the various research fields in the root-soil interaction. Proposals for communications as flash talks are welcome.

Session 3 “Computational methods in snow and avalanche release mechanics”  -2nd October 2019

Coordinators : Johan Gaume (SLF Davos, Switzerland, johan.gaume@epfl.ch ), Pascal Hagenmuller (CEN, Météo-France , France, pascal.hagenmuller@meteo.fr ), François Nicot (IRSTEA, France, francois.nicot@irstea.fr ), Guillaume Chambon (IRSTEA, France, guillaume.chambon@irstea.fr )

Objectives:

This session aims at providing a thorough review of the current knowledge in snow and avalanche mechanics, spanning different scales from the snow microstructure to the slope scale associated with engineering issues.

Our present understanding of the mechanical processes leading to failure initiation and crack propagation in snow has significantly increased over the past decade, mostly by considering fracture mechanical approaches and micro-mechanical models. However, simulating snowpack instability at the slope-scale still remains extremely challenging, mostly due to the crucial importance of the snow microstructure. In this context, the objective of this session will be to present the current state of available methods applied at the different scales of interest, and to gather scientists developing numerical models to address snow and avalanche release mechanics. We plan to invite speakers having a large variety of backgrounds, from snow science, to fracture mechanics and numerical methods. The link between snow avalanches and landslides will be considered.

Program of the Workshop and school

ALERT Doctoral School — MercuryDPM

The topic of the ALERT Doctoral School 2017 is Discrete Element Modeling. The last day of the school will consist of practical sessions for different levels of DEM users (beginner or advanced users). In order to prepare these sessions and have as few delays as possible, we ask the participants for the following:

Please bring your laptop or organize in small groups — a limited number of laptops will be provided by the organizers.

DEM for beginners: For this practical session, the organizers will provide bootable USB keys with OS (linux) and DEM programs pre-installed. Please check the procedure to boot on an external usb pen drive (which can be tricky with a very new laptop).

DEM for experts: For this practical session, students have to bring their own laptops. It is strongly recommended to install the software http://mercuryDPM.org. There is an installation instruction on the homepage or in the last chapter of the ALERT School book (the complete book will be published after the meeting in Aussois).