Debris flow session at EGU 2025

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This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting an abstract to EGU 2025 is fast approaching. Contribution about debris flow research are welcome at the following session:

Title:   Debris flows: advances in mechanics, monitoring, modelling and risk management

Deadline: 15 January 2025, 13:00 CET

Link for submission:  https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/abstractsubmission/52293

Conveners: A. Leonardi, J. Hirschberg, M. Hürlimann, S. Li, S. Savi

Here the session description summary:

Debris flows are among the most dangerous natural hazards, threatening people and infrastructure in mountainous and volcanic regions. Understanding their initiation, dynamics, and associated erosion/deposition processes is critical for hazard assessment, land-use planning, mitigation design, and early-warning systems. Climate change may heighten these hazards, requiring further research into its impacts.
Efforts to study debris flows and lahars are increasing, but challenges in measuring their initiation and propagation have spurred a range of laboratory experiments and monitoring studies. Improving instrumental observations is crucial for accurate modelling and hazard mapping. Advances in sensor networks, remote sensing, AI, and data-driven models provide new opportunities for understanding and managing these hazards.
This session invites scientists, practitioners, and decision-makers to share their work on field studies, debris-flow mechanics, experiments, modelling, monitoring, climate change impacts, hazard assessment, and early warning systems.

Assistant professor positions at 3SR Lab, Grenoble, France

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Dear colleagues,

Two positions of assistant professor will be open in 2025 at the 3SR Laboratory (UMR 5521, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP), with the profiles:

  • “Materials with a low environmental impact”,
  • “Mechanical behaviour of heterogeneous materials under extreme mechanical conditions”,

provided that the Board of Directors of Univ. Grenoble Alpes approves the opening of these positions.

Candidates must be French speakers.
You will find details of the profiles we are looking for on the 3SR “Recruitment” web page: https://3sr.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/fr/recrutement

I would be grateful if you could inform potential candidates of this, and circulate this information to colleagues working in these areas of research.

Yours sincerely
Gaël Combe, Director of 3SR.

[Final year Master internship offer] On the role of extreme drying-induced surface soil degradation on contaminant transport in the vadose zone: A numerical investigation

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An exciting 6-month internship opportunity (February–July 2025) is available at the Institut de Génie Civil et Mécanique (GeM), Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France. The project focuses on investigating the impact of extreme drying-induced surface soil degradation on contaminant transport using advanced numerical modeling techniques, coupling phase-field modeling and advection-diffusion equations. The position offers a stipend of approximately 600€/month (4.35€/hour) and requires strong skills in continuum mechanics, finite element methods, Python/Matlab programming, and proficiency in English. This internship is ideal for those passionate about vadose zone research and porous media mechanics. There is also a possibility to advance this work with a PhD thesis.

Interested candidates should read the pdf (attached) and email their CV & academic transcripts to Siddhartha H. Ommi at siddhartha-harsha.ommi@ec-nantes.fr

Postdoc on nature-based solution for geohazards

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The geotechnical engineering group at the University of Sheffield is recruiting a postdoc for the funded project, “Rooting for Resilience – Forests as Physical Barriers to Landslide Runout”, on a 3-year contract. This project aims to develop a framework for assessing the capacity of forests to mitigate landslide hazards, particularly focusing on the interaction between landslides and trees, including the effects of tree failure and woody debris. The research integrates numerical modelling, laboratory experiments, and case studies to guide reforestation strategies for landslide hazard reduction.

More details and applications through the site:
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLG332/research-associate-in-geohazards

For more information, feel free to contact Alessandro Leonardi at a.leonardi@sheffield.ac.uk.

Call for research grant

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Project title: Development of a new and original 3D finite element model to study the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of multiphase porous materials, with application to the simulation of the initiation, propagation and deposition of landslides, including catastrophic landslides.

Supervision: Professor Lorenzo Sanavia, University of Padua, Italy; lorenzo.sanavia@unipd.it
Host institution: University of Padua, Italy

Grant: 24 months, gross remuneration of 24,589 Euro per annum.

Call deadline: January 7th, 2025 (at 15:00 CET).

Work plan:

1) Implementation of the non-isothermal elasto-plastic and multiphase porous media model available in the finite element code COMES-GEO (UniPD) into the open-source code KRATOS (CIMNE). The porous media model, based on the Hybrid Mixture Theory, allows for the description of the multiphase and multiphysics nature of porous materials and the interactions present between the phases (solid, liquid, and gaseous).
2) Validation of the implementation using test cases.
3) Numerical simulation of two experimental tests performed with SHIVA (Slow to High Velocity Apparatus) at INGV (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) in Rome on Vajont clays and comparison between experimental and numerical results.
4) Link of COMES-GEO with KRATOS.
5) Application (back-analysis) to the study of the thermo-hydro-mechanical conditions of initiation and propagation of the catastrophic Vajont landslide (October 9, 1963).

The activity will be carried out, primarily, at the Centre for Studies on Climate Change Impacts CRITICAL of the University of Padua located in Rovigo (Italy).

Knowledge of programming in at least two of the three languages is required: Fortran, C++ and Python.

See the attached files (Call with the description of the grant and the Instructions to participate in the call) for more information.

Further info at: lorenzo.sanavia@unipd.it

Call for abstract: Invited Session 015 at Int. Conf. Coupled Problems 2025 – Villasimius (Sardinia), Italy, 26-29 May 2025

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Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to present your work in the invited session on “Computational Models and Methods for Multiphysics Processes in Multiphase Porous Media” (Session Code: 015)

that we are organizing for the 11th International Conference on Coupled Problems in Science and Engineering – COUPLED PROBLEMS 2025, https://coupled2025.cimne.com/

This ECCOMAS thematic conference and IACM Special Interest Conference will be held on 26-29 May in Villasimius (Sardinia), Italy.

The summary of the invited session can be found in the attached PDF.

Continue reading →

Post-doctoral position Hydromechanical behaviour of argillite-based sealing materials

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The Soil Mechanics team at LEMTA (Université de Lorraine, CNRS ) is seeking a motivated postdoctoral researcher for a 12-month position starting April 1, 2025. The research focuses on the thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical properties of clay-based materials for nuclear waste storage. This includes experimental and numerical studies to understand long-term stability and the effects of environmental conditions on these materials. The description of the position is attached in the PDF.

Invitation of speakers for MS at EMI 2025 IC

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It is our great pleasure to invite you to participate and present your latest work in the Mini Symposium on “Advances in Constitutive Modeling of Soils and Parameter Determination” (MS-24) that will be held during the ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute 2025 International Conference (EMI 2025-IC), at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Jul 17-20, 2025. 

The co-organizers of MS-24 include Rui Wang, Yan-Guo Zhou, Majid Manzari, Mahdi Taiebat, Kyohei Ueda, and Zhongxuan Yang.

This Mini Symposium aims to bring together researchers to discuss the needs, challenges, advances, and innovative paths forward for the development of constitutive models for soils and accurate parameter determination for advanced soil models.

Contributions are welcome on, but not limited to the topics below:

  • Constitutive modeling of soils under complex loading conditions
  • Constitutive modeling of special types of soils
  • Machine learning in constitutive modeling of soils
  • Optimization algorithms and machine learning methods in soil model calibration
  • Parameter determination using combination of laboratory and in-situ measurements
  • Validation and application of soil constitutive models and calibration methods

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is February 3, 2025, and we are excited to receive your abstract in due course. The link for abstract submission is https://emi-ic.asce.org/call-abstracts.

We look forward to your contributions soon.

EGU 2025 – Call for abstract for session EMRP1.7 “Laboratory characterization and numerical modelling of soft rocks”

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Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to invite you to submit an abstract to the session EMRP1.7 “Laboratory characterization and numerical modelling of soft rocks” for the next EGU GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2025 which will be held in Vienna from April 27 to May 2, 2025.

The session will be convenered by Maria Lia Napoli (from the Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering of Torino Polytechnic) and myself (Chiara Caselle, from the Department of Earth Science of Torino University) and will focus on the laboratory characterization and modeling of the thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) behaviour of weak/soft rocks and rock masses.

These rocks represent a challenge in several geoengineering contexts, due to their low strength, high heterogeneity, high proneness to drastic weathering or fracturing processes, and to the fact that they can develop time-dependent and water-interaction-dependent deformations (e.g., creep, swelling, squeezing).

Despite these materials raised big attention in the geotechnical and rock mechanics scientific communities in the last decades, several questions remain open about the understanding of the complexity that drives their behaviour, posing risks to the safety and longevity of infrastructures and to the stability of natural slopes and sea cliffs.

For these reasons, this session proposes to collect contributions about the THMC behaviour of soft rocks and rock masses, welcoming laboratory, modeling and case studies topics, with the objective of revealing our capability of effectively characterizing and predicting the behaviour of these materials. We hope that you wish to contribute to the discussion with your research!  

You can find more information at https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/51719 and the attached PDF.

The abstract deadline is January 15th (13:00 CET)!

We look forward to seeing you in Vienna!

Sincerely, 

Chiara and Maria Lia