Micro-fissuration dans les matériaux argileux hétérogènes sous sollicitations hydro-mécaniques : identification des mécanismes par confrontation entre modélisation numérique stochastique et analyses expérimentales à l’échelle microscopique
Advisors: Julien Yvonnet (MSME), Michel Bornert (NAVIER), Johann Guilleminot (Duke Univ.)
Brief summary:
The proposed PhD thesis aims at modeling microcracking in clay materials under hydro-mechanical loads at the scale of the microstructure, by approaches combining stochastic modeling, numerical simulations and experimental results. More precisely, the objectives are:
- To model microcracking in clay rocks; for this purpose, the available numerical methods (phase field method) will be enriched to take into account the complexity of the behaviour related to the hydric coupling (swelling, sensitivity of mechanical properties to moisture), nonlinearities and anisotropy.
(b) To characterize microcracking taking into account uncertainties at the microscale and its effects on the overall damage behaviour of the material.
(c) To identify and validate, in a stochastic context, the constructed models by comparisons with experimental data, available from previous works, or obtained by experimental works conducted in projects parallel to this PhD.
Figure 1: Experimental data [PhD thesis L. Wang]
Figure 2: Numerical phase field simulation of microcracking for random microstructures [Nguyen et al. CMAME 2016]