Abstract:
Naturally frozen soils, including permafrost and seasonally frozen soils, cover around 20% of the land surface on Earth. In recent decades, these regions have been subjected to warming, affecting the equilibrium conditions of frozen soils and causing significant ground perturbations compared to other regions. Thawing permafrost critically impacts the stability of infrastructures in inhabited regions or areas exploited for mineral and energy resources.
This study aims to investigate the behaviour of frozen soils under mechanical loading and freezing-thawing processes through laboratory microstructural observations. The experiments were performed on sandy soils with various fine contents using different imaging techniques:
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Conducting frost heave tests combined with Magnetic Resonance Imaging technique (MRI).
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Examining microstructural changes at the particle scale during freezing and thawing processes under triaxial conditions by conducting a series of thermal triaxial tests at Synchrotron Soleil.
In this seminar, I will present the work
accomplished for these tasks and some of the results obtained.
This PhD thesis is part of REFROZEN project, a collaboration between Ecole nationale des ponts et chaussées (France) and RWTH Aachen University (Germany).
Short bio:
I am a civil engineer and completed a research master’s degree (MSROE) at École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. I am currently pursuing a PhD thesis at the Navier Laboratory in collaboration with three teams: Géotechnique, RMP, and Multi-Échelle. My research focuses on frozen soils, and since the start of my PhD, I have developed a strong interest in this field.
