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Content archived on 2024-05-07

Network of European centrifuges for environmental research

Objective



Training is an important aspect of the proposed project. Networking should centrifuge physical modelling and this experimental method has known a provide opportunity to young researchers and teams only recently engaged in centrifuge modelling to gain benefit from more experienced teams significant spread all over the world during the past fifteen years. Many new centrifuges have been set in operation in different countries.

If the: Two kinds of actions are planned- training of permanent staff (researchers, engineers and technicians) of most fruitful applications have been up to now in the field of geo-technical engineering and soil/structure interaction problems, physical the centrifuge teams by short stays, participation to cross-tests and modelling appears to be also very promising in environmental engineering workshops;- training of young researchers by long stays among foreign teams and with already applications to heat and contaminant transport problems in participation in the joint research programme soils. In the European countries there is an increasing concern with environmental soil related problems (contaminant transport, waste containment, soil cleaning) and with respect to present knowledge physical centrifuge modelling seems to be a valuable tool for experimental investigation of complex situations where soil conditions are essential for the understanding of contaminant transport processes, and for a proper validation of theoretical numerical models. However research is still needed to reach these goals and international cooperation is obviously necessary since in many countries there is only one large geotechnical centrifuge facility. In order to develop the capabilities of centrifuge modelling in environmental engineering and to assess its limits, a limited number of topics has been selected to form the proposed scientific programme coordinated through a network of 11 European centrifuge research teams.

These topics are:
- the development of new measuring and testing devices for the detection of contaminant migration in soil models;
- the identification of scaling laws and similitude requirements for problems in non-saturated-soils, their validation and assessment of reproducibility of model testing;
- applications of physical modelling to the particular problems of clay barriers and liners.

Another objective is to disseminate information about the concepts and possibilities of centrifuge physical modelling towards research centres, university groups and civil engineering schools. This includes the maintenance and diffusion of a large international computerised data base of references on centrifuge work publications and the production of a series of short videos from actual experiments.

Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées
EU contribution
No data
Address

44340 Bouguenais
France

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Total cost
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Participants (9)