Creep failure of heterogeneous materials

Project description

"A collaboration with the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University (Finland) on the analysis of creep failure of heterogeneous quasi-fragile materials (concrete, rocks,...) was launched at the end of 2019. The objective is a theoretical and experimental analysis, based on concepts of statistical physics, rheology and the fracture of these materials under creep loading (constant stress), for which time-dependent processes (thermally activated) necessarily play a role. At the level of ISTerre, this project is in continuity with the work carried out in recent years on the damage and breakage of these same materials, but under monotonous ("athermal") loading. In this context, a Aalto’s thesis student, Tero Mäkinen, spent a month at ISTerre in January 2020, on credit. Finnish, to carry out tests on concrete, combining measurements of fields of image correlation distortion, passive acoustic emission to detect the microfracturing events, and tomographic damage fields ultrasonic. The present project aims to finance a stay of Tero Mäkinen in Grenoble on this spring or early summer to finalize analyses and write articles."