Publications related to Coupled hydro-mechanical analysis of compacted bentonite behaviour during hydration

Strain engineering and strain measurement by spring tethers on suspended epitaxial GaN-on-Si photonic crystal devices

Suspended epitaxial gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon (Si) photonic crystal devices suffer from large residual tensile strain, especially for long waveguides, because fine structures tend to crack due to large stress. By introducing spring-like tethers, des ...

Iop Publishing Ltd2024

Oxidation processes and me

Urs von Gunten

This publication summarizes my journey in the field of chemical oxidation processes for water treatment over the last 30+ years. Initially, the efficiency of the application of chemical oxidants for micropollutant abatement was assessed by the abatement of ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Dynamic behavior of exposed geomembrane systems in pressure waterways

Giovanni De Cesare, Samuel Luke Vorlet, Roberto Proença Seixas

Geomembrane systems have been used in dams and reservoirs as rehabilitation technology since several decades and are now used worldwide. They act as impervious layer to prevent and mitigate water leakage and damage to structures. They meet the needs of man ...

CRC Press/Balkema2023

Shear strength and shear stiffness analysis of compacted Wyoming-type bentonite

Alessio Ferrari

Wyoming-type bentonite is one of the materials to be used as part of the Engineered Barrier System (EBS) in deep geological disposal facilities for the safe disposal of spent nuclear fuel.In the KBS-3 type repository, the canisters containing the spent fue ...

ELSEVIER2023

Microscopic Digital Image Correlation Analysis of Strain Distributions in Stainless Steel 316L Induced by Multiaxial Cyclic Loading

Elif Cansu Kursun

Fatigue damage in materials results in localized strain at the microstructural level. In many engineering components of the cooling circuits of nuclear power plants, where austenitic steels are used, the material experiences multiaxial cyclic loading, eith ...

EPFL2023

Thermo-hydro-mechanical analysis of the complete lifetime of the bentonite barrier in the FEBEX in-situ test

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Yafei Qiao, Jose Antonio Bosch Llufriu

The FEBEX test was a large-scale demonstration project for the deep geological disposal concept of nuclear waste involving bentonite seals that lasted 18 years. One of the objectives of the test was to evaluate the capabilities of numerical methods to prov ...

2023

Role of Minimum Adhesive Wear Particle Size in Third-Body Layer Properties

Jean-François Molinari, Son-Jonathan Pham-Ba

We employ a novel discrete element method (DEM) force formulation to simulate adhesive wear and assess the effects of material and loading parameters on the properties of the third-body layer (TBL) formed during sliding motion. The study emphasizes the rol ...

2023

Solids that are also liquids: elastic tensors of superionic materials

Nicola Marzari, Giuliana Materzanini, Tommaso Chiarotti

Superionics are fascinating materials displaying both solid- and liquid-like characteristics: as solids, they respond elastically to shear stress; as liquids, they display fast-ion diffusion at normal conditions. In addition to such scientific interest, su ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

Strain Gradients and Magnetoresistance in Microstructured 3D Topological Semi-metals

Jonas De Jesus Diaz Gomez

Three-dimensional topological semimetals have emerged as strong candidates to probe new fundamental physical phenomena that could be exploited to develop next generation electronics. However, many aspects of their electronic properties remain unclear. Thi ...

EPFL2023

Reliability analysis and partial safety format calibration considering the characteristics of the resistance of reinforced concrete structures

Qianhui Yu

Every engineering calculation is an approximation of reality, with inevitable uncertainties involved. This fact implies that a reliability verification accounting for the uncertainties is a necessary step in the design and assessment of structures. Nowaday ...

EPFL2023

Why five decades of massive research on heterogeneous photocatalysis, especially on TiO2, has not yet driven to water disinfection and detoxification applications? Critical review of drawbacks and challenges

César Pulgarin, Julian Andrés Rengifo Herrera

For fifty years, heterogeneous photocatalysis has been considered as having potential to remove organic and microbiological pollutants from water under either artificial UV light or sunlight irradiation. However, after tens of thousands of published resear ...

Elsevier Science Sa2023

Determination of Parameters Characteristic of Dynamic Weakening Mechanisms During Seismic Faulting in Cohesive Rocks

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Chiara Cornelio, François Xavier Thibault Passelègue

While sliding at seismic slip-rates of ∼1 m/s, natural faults undergo an abrupt decrease of shear stress called dynamic weakening. Asperity-scale processes related to flash heating and weakening and, meso-scale (mm-cm) processes involving shear across the ...

AGU2022

Three-dimensional stress state during dynamic shear rupture propagation along frictional interfaces in elastic plates

Jean-François Molinari, Roozbeh Rezakhani

The state of stress in plates, where one geometric dimensions is much smaller than the others, is often assumed to be of plane stress. This assumption is justified by the fact that the out-of-plane stress components are zero on the free-surfaces of a plate ...

ELSEVIER2022

Investigation of the effect of mineral dissolution on the geomechanical behaviour of geomaterials

Taeheon Kim

Geotechnical engineering scenarios engaged in internal erosion or mineral dissolution were found worldwide, from CO2 sequestration projects to internal erosion of earth dams. Materials subjected to loss of solid phase from their internal fabric vary from s ...

EPFL2022

Controlling superconductivity of CeIrIn5 microstructures by substrate selection

Philip Johannes Walter Moll, Matthias Carsten Putzke, Chunyu Guo, Maja Deborah Bachmann, Maarten Ruud van Delft, Joshua Alan Wolfe Straquadine

Superconductor/metal interfaces are usually fabricated in heterostructures that join these dissimilar materials. A conceptually different approach has recently exploited the strain sensitivity of heavy-fermion superconductors, selectively transforming regi ...

AIP Publishing2022

Nanoplastics removal during drinking water treatment: Laboratory- and pilot-scale experiments and modeling

Urs von Gunten

Microplastics detected in potable water sources and tap water have led to concerns about the efficacy of current drinking water treatment processes to remove these contaminants. It is hypothesized that drinking water resources contain nanoplastics (NPs), b ...

ELSEVIER2022

Volume change response and fabric evolution of granular MX80 bentonite along different hydro-mechanical stress paths

Alessio Ferrari, Jose Antonio Bosch Llufriu, Patrycja Ewelina Baryla

Despite the increasing understanding of bentonite behaviour, there is still missing evidence on how different hydro-mechanical loadings, including sequences of hydration and compression, affect the fabric and the volume change behaviour of the material. It ...

Springer Nature2022

Influence of amount of shear reinforcement and its post-yield response on the shear resistance of reinforced concrete members

Aurelio Muttoni, Miguel Fernández Ruiz, Frédéric Monney

The minimum amount of shear reinforcement to be provided in reinforced concrete members has been a topic of debate and research for decades without reaching a consensus. Defining such values is however instrumental to build in an economic manner and to saf ...

ERNST & SOHN2022

Studies on the mechanical evolution of compacted bentonite subjected to environmental actions

Jose Antonio Bosch Llufriu

Deep geological disposal is currently the most feasible option for the long-term isolation of radioactive waste, consisting in emplacing the waste into tunnels or drifts excavated at great depths in suitable geological formations. The use of bentonite, a h ...

EPFL2021

Effective stress for unsaturated active clays and in-situ effective stress estimation methodology

Angelica Tuttolomondo

The complexity of the mechanics of active clays and, more generally, of geomaterials with clay minerals, under saturated and unsaturated conditions, still provides relevant scientific challenges today. Equally relevant challenges are the understanding of t ...

EPFL2021