ALERT Workshop 2023 – Call for abstracts

The ALERT Workshop 2023 (33rd Edition) should be held in Aussois from 25th to 27th September, 2023. Abstracts can now be submitted for the 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 May 19, 2023. For any communication about your participation to the workshops, please contact the coordinators of the workshop sessions directly.

Here is a reminder of the workshop sessions as well as a short description of each of them. The call for abstract is open for the Session 1 and Session 3 only:

  • Session 1: “Energy geomechanics
    Organizers: Jean-Michel Pereira, Carlos Santamarina and Diego Manzanal.

    The use of the geological subsurface is gaining interest in various energy-related applications, covering energy recovery and storage. In these applications, the physical phenomena at play in the encountered porous materials include -often in a coupled manner- heat and mass transfers, multiphase flow, reactive transport of fluids, mechanics, etc.

  • Session 2: “Extraterrestrial geomechanics
    Organizers: P. Delage and F. Prada

    The InSight mission, which landed on Mars in 2018, is a geophysical mission with a seismometer (SEIS) supplied by France and a penetrometer (HP3) supplied by Germany as its main instruments for measuring the thermal gradient on the surface.
    Thanks to the detection of Martian earthquakes (Marsquakes), the mission was able to improve the determination of the planet’s structure (radius of the core, mantle and crust), as intended. The seismometer also detected large meteorite impacts. The Near Surface Working Group is also interested in the geological and mechanical properties of the surface. They have studied the interaction between a Martian regolith analogue and the seismometer, and estimated in advance the elastic properties, with values close to those measured on site.
    The proposed session would be based on the participation of European scientists involved in the mission.

  • Session 3: “Anisotropy in geomaterials: theory, experiments and modelling”
    Organizers: Eleni Gerolymatou, Cino Viggiani, and Angelo Amorosi.

    Anisotropy, i.e. the variation of any given property of the material with direction, can have a significant effect on the material response to loading. It is present in most types of geomaterials, ranging from granular soils to hard rocks.
    Due to the significant effort required to determine in the laboratory the internal variables of the material and the additional difficulties linked to its constitutive description, it is in most applications ignored as a matter of fact. However, in the last years significant efforts have been made in both directions.
    With the present topic suggestion the organizers would like to invite contributions from researchers working on anisotropy in geomaterials in the fields of constitutive law development, experimental testing and numerical simulation. The aim is to increase awareness of the significance of anisotropy, to stimulate scientific exchange and to provide a first exposure to its intricacies for younger researchers.

ALERT Workshop & School 2023

Dear ALERT members,
Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to announce to you the themes and dates of the ALERT Workshop and School 2023.

ALERT WORKSHOP 2023
Dates of the ALERT Workshop 2023: 25th September to 27th September 2023

  • Session 1: “Energy geomechanics
    Organizers: Jean-Michel Pereira, Carlos Santamarina and Diego Manzanal.
  • Session 2 (half-day): “Extraterrestrial geomechanics
    Organizers: Pierre Delage and Felipe Prada.
  • Session 3: “Anisotropy in geomaterials: theory, experiments and modelling”
    Organizers: Eleni Gerolymatou, Cino Viggiani, and Angelo Amorosi.

ALERT SCHOOL 2023
Dates of the ALERT School 2023: 28th September to 30th September 2023

  • Machine learning in geomechanics
    Organizers: Ioannis Stefanou and Félix Darve.

Hoping to see you in Aussois !

Registration for the ALERT Workshop and School 2022 is OPEN!

Dear ALERT community,

I am pleased to inform you that the registration for the ALERT Geomaterials Workshop and School 2022 is now open! The preliminary programs of the School and the Workshop are available here.

In the continuity of last year edition, it was decided to propose you two alternatives for your registration to the workshop and doctoral school: either you can come and participate in Aussois, or you can passively attend those remotely (no questions can be asked). Furthermore, all presenters must attend on-site.

This year, the ALERT Bureau has decided to offer one day of accomodation to:

  • all PhD students attending the doctoral school and coming from an ALERT member institution;
  • all retired researchers attending the workshop.

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. If you are an ALERT members, the corresponding representative of your ALERT institution will receive the registration data too.

Click here to register for the ALERT Workshop and School 2022.

The deadline for the registration is the September 16th! 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.

Looking forward to meeting you in Aussois!

ALERT Workshop 2022 – Extended Call for Abstract for Session 1

The deadline for the abstract submission has been extended to May 31, 2022 for the SESSION 1 ONLY. 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.

As a reminder, here are the workshop sessions:

  • Session 1: “Mechanics of hard-soils/soft rocks” – EXTENDED CALL
    Organizers: Claudia Vitone (claudia.vitone@poliba.it) (Politecnico di Bari, Italy), Nadia Benahmed (nadia.benahmed@inrae.fr) (INRAE, France),  Elma Charalampidou (ec10@hw.ac.uk) (Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, UK).
  • Session 2: “Robot-Ground Interaction“ – CLOSED
    Organizers: Raul Fuentes and Itai Einav
  • Session 3: “Multi-field approach of gravity-driven disasters in a global climate change context” – CLOSED
    Organizers: F. Nicot (EDYTEM / USMB), F. Magnin (EDYTEM / CNRS-USMB), S. Lambert (UGA – INRAE), F. Calvetti (Politecnico Milano)

Further information on this post.

ALERT Workshop 2022 – Call for abstracts for the three sessions

The ALERT Workshop 2022 (32nd Edition) should be held in Aussois from 26th to 28th September, 2022. Abstracts can now be submitted for 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, 2022. For any communication about your participation to the workshops, please contact the coordinators of the workshop sessions directly.

As a reminder, here are the workshop sessions for which the call for abstracts is open:

Further information on this post.

ALERT Geomaterials Workshop 2022

From September 26 to September 28 in Aussois, France.

Session 1: “Mechanics of Hard Soils – Soft Rocks

Coordinators: Claudia Vitone (claudia.vitone@poliba.it) (Politecnico di Bari, Italy), Nadia Benahmed (nadia.benahmed@inrae.fr) (INRAE, France),  Elma Charalampidou (ec10@hw.ac.uk) (Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, UK).

Outline

In the last decades, our community has dedicated to Hard Soils – Soft Rocks (HSSR) some fundamental Conferences, such as “The Geotechnics of Structurally Complex Formations” in Capri (1977), “The Geotechnical Engineering of Hard Soils and Soft Rocks” in Athens (1993), “The Geotechnics of Hard Soils and Soft Rocks” in Naples (1998) and, finally, the 15th ECSMGE in Athens, which was devoted to “The Geotechnics of Hard Soils and Weak Rocks” in (2011). Although these helped advance our understanding of HSSR materials, there are still questions that remain unanswered more than ten years later. For example, are HSSR still part of the main challenging materials of the new millennium? Are we fully aware of the multi-physics and multi-scale complexity behind their engineering problematic responses? Can we effectively enter their grey area to predict effectively their engineering behaviour?

The “Mechanics of Hard Soils – Soft Rocks” session intends to address these three questions by: i) enucleating distinct and special features of HSSR; ii) reviewing the most recent experimental evidence; iii) summing up the modelling strategies functional to recognise and interpret their peculiarities.

The one-day session will mainly focus on: 1) experimental evidence of the physical characteristics and geomechanical effects of stress-history, bond- and suction-induced soil structures of HSSR; 2) constitutive and numerical modelling strategies, which are physics-inspired and experimentally-driven; 3) recent emblematic cases of successful and unsuccessful predictions of their engineering behaviour to future research addresses.

Call for abstract: Abstracts are invited to be submitted to the organisers by the 30th of April 2022. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to give a 20-minute presentation within the appropriate session.

Session 2: “Robot-Ground Interaction

Coordinators: Raul Fuentes (raul.fuentes@rwth-aachen.de) and Itai Einav (itai.einav@sydney.edu.au)

Outline

The development of robots interacting with the ground has been steadily gaining traction in recent years. Initially focussing on robots and vehicles that moved over the ground, later research has also focussed on subterranean interaction using burrowing devices. In this workshop, we will concentrate in providing an general overview of the current research field.

The workshop has been divided into four main sessions covering different topics: 1) On the surface, 2) Burrowing, 3) Computational and 4) Granular dynamics. Each session will be delivered and moderated by two well-known invited speakers in the area. At the end of each session we will leave time to discuss and engage with the audience.

Session 3: “Multi-field approach of gravity-driven disasters in a global climate change context

Coordinators: F. Nicot (francois.nicot@univ-smb.fr) (EDYTEM / USMB), F. Magnin (Florence.Magnin@univ-smb.fr) (EDYTEM / CNRS-USMB), S. Lambert (stephane.lambert@inrae.fr) (UGA – INRAE), F. Calvetti (francesco.calvetti@polimi.it) (Politecnico Milano)

Outline

Analysis and modeling of mass-driven natural hazards in mountainous areas stand as a major challenge in order to protect people and infrastructures. This is all the more strategic since mountain ranges assume great importance for tourism and economical stakes. Because there are major road and rail links given up to property developers, but also dominated by strong natural hazards, it has become expedient to establish a protection strategy against natural risks. Such phenomena are thought to become more striking in the context of a global climate change, marked by an evolution in both temperature and precipitation distribution. In particular, ice melting is observed at high altitude levels, above 3000 meters of elevation, modifying therefore the mechanical behavior of the escarpments (partially, or not, snow covered) and mountain slopes.
In this very challenging context for human society, this session attempts to shed light on the scientific related issues, including multiphasic constitutive modeling with phase transition, field survey and observations, thermo-induced failure modeling of (soil and rock) slopes. The college of speakers will focus on most advanced knowledge in the field, and will promote vigorous cross-fertilized discussions between experts from different communities such as geomechanics, natural hazard sciences, geophysics and quantitative geomorphology.

ALERT Workshop & School 2022

Dear ALERT members,
Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to announce to you the themes and dates of the ALERT Workshop and School 2022.

ALERT WORKSHOP 2022
Dates of the ALERT Workshop 2022: 26th September to 28th September 2022

  • Session 1: “Mechanics of hard-soils/soft rocks
    Organizers: Claudia Vitone, Elma Charalampidou & Nadia Benahmed
  • Session 2 (half-day): “Robot ground interaction”
    Organizers: Raul Fuentes & Itai Einav.
  • Session 3: “Gravity-driven disasters in a global climate change context”
    Organizers: François Nicot, Florence Magnin, Stéphane Lambert & Francesco Calvetti.

ALERT SCHOOL 2022
Dates of the ALERT School 2022: 28th September to 2nd October 2022

  • Advanced experimental geomechanics
    Organizers: Edward Ando, Benjy Marks & Ryan Hurley

ALERT OZ Course 2022

There are still no propositions for the ALERT OZ Course 2022, so you are welcomed to send us your proposition!

Further information will arrive later.
Hoping to see you next year in Aussois !