Civil and environmental engineering

Our research group in Civil and Environmental Engineering conducts both fundamental and applied research at the intersection of structural engineering, hydraulics, and geomechanics, driven by a mission to address societal and environmental challenges in a changing world. 

Many of our projects are rooted in enhancing resilience to climate change and extreme events, promoting sustainable infrastructure, and advancing optimized design and simulation techniques. Our research spans a wide spectrum — from timber and tensegrity structures to offshore wind turbine foundations and concrete reinforced with innovative materials. We also investigate hydraulic systems under extreme conditions, such as dam breaks, embankment breaches, and floods in urban areas, using a combination of experimental approaches and advanced numerical simulations. 

We work in close collaboration with the LEMSC (Mechanical Testing, Structures, and Civil Engineering Laboratory), a state-of-the-art experimental platform supported by a dedicated team of engineers and technicians. The platform includes a wide array of equipment and high-precision instrumentation for evaluating the behavior of civil engineering structures and rock materials under both static and dynamic loading conditions. It also features small- and large-scale physical models for flow simulations including sediment transport. This advanced infrastructure enables us to carry out small- and large-scale testing and sophisticated physical experiments, which form a critical foundation for the development and validation of our numerical models.

Geomechanics

The research activities in the field of Geomechanics deal with the mechanical behavior of geomaterials subjected to thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical couplings, developing constitutive laws, experimental methods and advanced numerical models for the understanding and modeling of :

• Energy infrastructures (Offshore wind turbine foundations, geothermal energy, or hydrogen storage)
• Geohazards (landslides, earthquakes, volcanoes collapse)

A focus is put on the identification of the physical mechanisms responsible at the micro- and nanoscopic scales for the strength and deformation of geomaterials using advanced characterization and imaging methods (Scanning Electron Microscope, porosimetry, X-ray computed tomography) and microstructure-based modelling.

Structural and earthquake Engineering

Our research covers, among others, the following key areas: 

• Numerical simulation and large-scale testing of structural response to extreme and dynamic loading, with the goal of improving resilience and reducing risk. These activities include, but are not limited to, studying the behavior of reinforced concrete structures under seismic loading. 
• Timber engineering, driven by the conviction that the timber construction sector remains competitive only when wood is processed as little as possible. Our projects cover a range of topics, including non-destructive mechanical characterization of logs, steel-free carpentry connections, and timber slab systems. 
• The design of novel structural systems, such as tensegrity and reciprocal structures. Our work goes beyond theoretical exploration, focusing on the development of practical design and calculation rules that ensure these systems can be built reliably and cost-effectively. 
• Exploration of innovative reinforcement materials as alternatives or complements to conventional steel reinforcement in concrete structures. These efforts respond to the growing demand for sustainability, durability, and high performance in civil infrastructure. 
• Structural systems for agrivoltaic power plants, with a particular emphasis on optimizing designs for both short- and long-span configurations, promoting the use of timber, and minimizing the environmental impact of foundations.

Hydraulics

Researches in the field of Hydraulics mainly concern

• fluvial hydraulics,
• sediment transport and
• flow modelling,

especially under severe transient conditions such as for example dam-break flows or breaching or earthen embankments.

Both experimental and numerical simulations approaches are developed. As regards laboratory experiments, the team has developed a strong expertise in non-intrusive measurement techniques based on digital imagery, such as PIV or photogrammetry. Numerous data sets are issued from these experiments that are used worldwide by scientists to validate their numerical simulation tools.