Overview

State-of-the-art geotechnics provides scientific and technical answers to the new challenges of construction (increasingly poor terrain, higher loads, climate change and drought, etc.), the environment (natural hazards, polluted soils, etc.) and energy (energy geostructures).

Participants in this CAS will have the basics of the physical mechanisms that govern these different engineering problems and the tools to apply them to geotechnics structures.

The laws of behavior of geomaterials (elastoplasticity, viscosity, non-saturation, temperature, etc.) are the foundations of advanced geotechnics. They will be addressed in connection with the establishment of experimental programs for the determination of material parameters.

The numerical analysis with the finite element method and the other pillar of competences which will be developed through examples of geotechnics problem solving. A particular focus will be put on multiphysical coupled problems in saturated and unsaturated conditions.

The participants will receive a finite element calculation code from the public domain that will allow them to continue their deepening of the subject after the course.

Objectives

• Understand and analyze the physical processes that define the multi-physical behavior of soils

• Be able to interpret and use advanced behavioral laws for the description of non-linear responses of geomaterials

• Learn how to analyze the results of experimental campaigns to guide the choice of behavioral laws and define their calibration

• Be able to define a coupled finite element analysis of a geotechnics problem

• Critically examine some practical examples of the application of advanced geotechnics around the world.