Structured Project 3: Rheology/elaboration of complex materials (aerated or reinforced)
Coordinated by Julie Goyon and Jean-Noël Roux (Laboratoire Navier)
This structured project addresses all materials with a rheological status somewhat intermediate between liquids and solids, such as pastes, dense suspensions, granular materials, gels and foams, with applications to civil engineering and construction materials at the stage of their elaboration and to soils. Some materials contain solid particles at different scales (nanocomposites, colloidal suspensions, granular materials suspensions), others contain bubbles (aerated materials, liquid foams).
Multidisciplinary approaches are to integrate contributions from soft matter physics, mechanics of contacts and interfaces, rheology and soil mechanics. Research approaches and tools involve experimental techniques to characterize mechanical properties and investigate material microstructures, as well as numerical simulations with discrete or continuous modeling schemes.
This structured project, after the former thematic axis 3 and transverse project 3, aims at fostering new synergies in this field. In particular emerging themes comprise the controlled elaboration and the mechanical characterization of gels and emulsions (postdoc fellowship of Alessia Mikhaïlovskaïa), and the rheophysics and microstructure of cohesive particle assemblies. Related ongoing or recently completed projects funded by ANR are PHYGAMA (about “gas marbles”, or bubbles with interfaces strongly reinforced by solid particles — see also here), and RHEOGRANOSAT (about granular materials partially saturated by a wetting liquid).