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 !

Getting to Aussois by train

Dear all,

For those of you who are registered to the workshop and school in Aussois, and come by train, a bus has been planned to pick you up at the station at around 19h00, Sunday 26 September.

A bus will also be planned to drive you back to the station at the end of the school but more information will arrive later.

See you soon in Aussois !

ON-SITE FULLY BOOKED & SANITARY UPDATE – ALERT Workshop & School 2021

Dear ALERT community,

As you may know, the registration for the ALERT Workshop and School 2021 is open! The preliminary program of the Workshop and School is available here.

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 attend those remotely.

UNFORTUNATELY, the number of participants that can come to Aussois is limited to 160, and has been reached. The only registration possible from now on is therefore remotely.

ABOUT THE SANITARY CONDITIONS

As a reminder, the restrictions for entering France will depend on your country of departure and your vaccination status (more information here and here).

Your stay (and access) at the CNRS “Centre Paul Langevin” where the event takes place is conditional on the presentation of a HEALTH PASS upon your arrival. This means that you must have at least one of the following documents:

  • A vaccination certificate (provided you have a complete vaccination schedule);
  • A negative test (RT-PCR or antigen of less than 48 hours). For unvaccinated travelers from Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Malta, the Netherlands and Portugal, a negative PCR or antigen test of less than 24 hours is required;
  • A certificate of recovery from Covid-19 (RT-PCR or positive antigen test dated at least 11 days and less than 6 months).

More information can be found here. For members of “green list countries” (see the website), a sworn statement attesting to the absence of symptoms of covid-19 infection and contact with a confirmed case of covid-19 is also required. You can find it here.

Furthermore, the center has implemented a strict health protocol, providing for the wearing of masks in all premises and common areas in order to guarantee the safety of all. The full health and safety protocol can be accessed here, please read it before your arrival.

LAST REMINDER

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 2021.

The deadline for the registration is the September 17th! 

Looking forward to (safely) meeting you in Aussois!

REMINDER – Registration for the ALERT Workshop & School 2021 is open!

Dear ALERT community,

I am pleased to inform you that the registration for the ALERT Geomaterials Workshop and School 2021 is now open! The preliminary program of the Workshop and School is available here.

As sanitary conditions are improving, 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 attend those remotely. Don’t worry, your choice can always be modified later on, as the sanitary conditions may change. As a reminder, the restrictions for entering France will depend on your country of departure and your vaccination status (more information here and here).

To enter the CNRS “Centre Paul Langevin” where the event takes place, you must be fully vaccinated and able to show a certificate stating this.

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 2021.

The deadline for the registration is the September 17th! 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 (safely) meeting you in Aussois!

Registration for the ALERT Workshop & School 2021 is open!

Dear ALERT community,

I am pleased to inform you that the registration for the ALERT Geomaterials Workshop and School 2021 is now open! The preliminary program of the School is available here, and the one of the Workshop should soon be posted online.

As sanitary conditions are improving, 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 attend those remotely. Don’t worry, your choice can always be modified later on, as the sanitary conditions may change. As a reminder, the restrictions for entering France will depend on your country of departure and your vaccination status (more information 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. 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 2021.

The deadline for the registration is the September 17th! 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 (safely) meeting you in Aussois!

Workshop and Doctoral School announcement

Dear ALERT community,

As sanitary conditions are improving, certainly thanks to the vaccination, we are confident that it will be possible to meet again in September 2021 in Aussois.

However, it cannot be ruled out that travel restrictions will still be in place at that time, particularly from outside the EU. The conditions for entering France will depend on your country of departure and your vaccination status (https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/coming-to-france/coronavirus-advice-for-foreign-nationals-in-france/#sommaire_1 ).

Therefore, for the first time in the history of ALERT, the decision was taken to organize the workshop and the doctoral school in hybrid mode in 2021. It means it will be possible to attend these events while being present in Aussois or remotely. This way, we hope to meet the expectations of both those eager to meet and those unwilling to travel.

In the coming weeks, you will be able to register and choosing one of these two options (which can be modified if necessary).

Keep staying safe, long life to ALERT-Geomaterials!

Newsletter 2021 & Postponement of the deadline for the workshop

Dear ALERT members,

the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, and for us all moments of stress alternate with moments of hope. We can expect an improvement in the coming months with vaccination, but the pandemic has so often overturned all forecasts that, as of today, no certainty is allowed.

We all wish to meet again in Aussois at the end of September in order to share scientific discussions or simply a coffee (or a beer). The Bureau will let you know the final decision on the organisation mode by the end of June, but be sure that this year all our activities (including the three workshop sessions) will take place – in the worst case, remotely!

Please find attached our Spring 2021 Newsletter.

Following this confirmation of our willingness to organise all our activities in 2021, the deadline to send title and abstract of presentations for the Workshop 2021 has been extended to 20 June 2021.

ALERT Geomaterials Workshop 2021

From September 27 to September 29 (hopefully in Aussois, possibly online).

Session 1 “Forecasting landslide displacements”  

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: 20 June 2021 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 ”  

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” 

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 sand grains and coarse soils can be modelled at the microscale with realistic particle properties, it may be a good time to pause and ask: are we modelling real internal processes for either coarse or fine soils? This day session attempts to address this issue.

The sub-sessions will concern the laboratory testing providing evidence of a micro to macro behavioural framework. Both consolidated soils, either coarse or fine, whose structure developed through sedimentation and consolidation in saturated conditions and compacted soils, deposited and loaded in partially saturated conditions, are of interest. The afternoon sub-sessions will be focused on the modelling of micro- and macro-processes, including the differences between the micro-structure of consolidated and compacted soils, which will be emphasized with experimental data to serve as platform for the modelling. Examples of how some of that evidence is integrated in modelling should be provided. The morning and afternoon sessions will be centred around two invited lectures each, complemented by selected presentations. Extra discussion time will be scheduled.

Three sub-sessions are foreseen: 1. Experimental evidence of physical processes in soils and their experimental characterisation; 2. Modelling micromechanical properties and processes with discrete mechanics; 3. Continuum modelling of micromechanical processes with macromechanics. The modelling sessions should focus on models that actively account for experimental observations.

The organisers would like to invite you to participate in one of the sessions above in the form of a 20-minute presentation.

DEADLINE AND SUBMISSION: Abstracts are invited to be submitted to the organisers by 20 June 2021 (respecting the format suggested by ALERT). Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to give a presentation within the appropriate mini-session.