Carnot B115

0033164153542

pierre.delage@enpc.fr

Pierre Delage

Researcher

Professor

Biography

Education

  • 1976: Civil Engineer, Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC), Paris
  • 1979: PhD (Eng. Geology), Ecole des Mines de Paris, Université Paris VI
  •   1997: Habilitation à diriger les recherches (ENPC, ENS Cachan, Univ. Marne la Vallée) 

Appointments

  • 2011-  : Senior researcher
  • 2010 – 2011: Invited Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 2003 – 2010: Head, CERMES (the geotechnical research group of ENPC, 38 persons)
  • 1985 – 2003: Deputy-director of CERMES
  • 1983 – 1985: Research fellow at CERMES
  • 1980 – 1982: Post-doc fellow at Université de Sherbrooke (Canada)

Memberships

  • 2017 – : French Academy of Agriculture, member
  • 2013 – : Chair, Technical Oversight Presidential Board Level Committee, International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE)
  • 2013 –  : Member, InSight Science Team, NASA (InSight is an on-going mission on Mars, landed 26/11/2018)
  • 2012 –  :  Board member, French Geotechnical Association (CFMS)
  • 2016 – 2018: Chair of the Organising Committee, JNGG2018 (9th French Conf. on Soil and Rock Mechanics), 13 – 15 June, Ecole des ponts ParisTech
  • 2015 – 2016: Chair of the Organising Committee, 4th European Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, Paris
  • 2013 – 2016: Chair and Honorary Editor, Géotechnique Letters (ICE, London)
  • 2004 – 2014: Vice-Chair, TC 106 Committee on Unsaturated Soils (ISSMGE)
  • 2011 – 2013: Vice-Chair, Scientific Committee, 18th Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Geotech. Eng., Paris 2013, Main editor of the Proceedings
  • 2009 – 2013: Member, Innovation and Development Committee (IDC), ISSMGE
  • 2001 – 2010: Vice-Chairman of the French Geotechnical Association (CFMS)
  • Member, French Associations: i) Geotechnical Eng., ii) Dams and Reservoirs, iii) Rock Mechanics, iv) Engineering Geology, v) Clays
  • Member, Editorial panels of ASTM Geotechnical Testing Journal (USA), Geomechanics and Geoengineering (UK), Rivista Geotecnica Italiana, Revista Escolas de Minas (Brasil)

Research

Pierre Delage develops researches on the fundamentals mechanisms governing the macroscopic response of multi-phase soils and rocks submitted to changes in stress, water content and temperature effects, with some pioneering contributions on the role of the changes in the pore size distribution in the volume change behaviour of soils, the stress-strain and failure behaviour of unsaturated soils and the thermal response of claystones. recent research also include the mechanical behaviour of Martian regoliths, in link with the on-going NASA InSight mission on Mars

  • Unsaturated soils mechanics: applications to earthdams, embankments, compacted bentonite for radioactive waste storage, effects of drought on buildings, collapsible loess, shales
  • Thermo-mechanics of clays and shales: application to deep geological storage of radioactive waste
  • Microstructure and behaviour of soft soils (sensitive clays, deep marine soils) and shales
  • Mechanical behaviour of Martian soils (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, NASA, CNES)
  • Mechanical behaviour of multiphase chalks: North sea oil reservoirs, stability of chalk quarries
  • Soil reinforcement (nailing, fibres)
  • Soil pollution by NAPL

Teaching

  • Structures, Energy and Risks: adressing the main civil engineering issues in energy production structures (dams, nuclear power plants, renewable marine energy and offshore oil production), with respect to risks
  • Applied geotechnics: Advanced course within the geotechnical option in 3rd year, including both a geotechnical project investigated through both standard methods and a finite-element geotechnical code
  • Advanced geotechnics for energy production: course adressing specific geotechnical approaches devoted dams, nuclear plants, offshore geotechnics and earthquake engineering, included in the Master degree “Civil engineering for energy production"

Paper selection

  • Stanić F., Delage P., Cui Y.J., Versini P.A., Schertzer D., Tchiguirinskaia I. 2020. Two improvements to Gardner's method of measuring the hydraulic conductivity of non-saturated media: accounting for impedance effects and non-constant imposed suction increment. Water Resources Research, 56, https://doi.org/ 10.1029/2019WR026098
  • Delage P., Karakostas F., Dhemaied A., Belmokhtar M., Lognonné P., Golombek M., De Laure E., Hurst K., Dupla J.C., Kedar S., Cui Y.J., Banerdt B. 2017. An investigation of the mechanical properties of some Martian regolith simulants with respect to the surface properties at the InSight mission landing site. Space Science Reviews, 211(1), 191-213.
  • Delage P., Tessier D. 2020. Macroscopic effects of nano and microscopic phenomena in clayey soils and clay rocks. Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment, https://doi:10.1016/j.gete.2019.100177.
  • Braun P., Ghabezloo S., Delage P., Sulem J. and Conil N. 2018. Theoretical analysis of pore pressure diffusion in some basic rock mechanics experiments. Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 51(5), 1361 – 1378.
  • Acosta-Martinez H., Delage P., Nicks J. et Day P. 2018. Global survey on the state-of-the-art and the state-of-practice in geotechnical engineering. Australian Geomechanics Journal 53(1), 141-153.
  • Molinero Guerra A., Delage P., Cui Y.J., Mokni N., Tang A.M., Aimedieu P., Bernier F. Bornert M., 2019. Water retention properties and microstructure changes of a bentonite pellet upon wetting/drying; application to radioactive waste disposal. Géotechnique, 70 (3), 199-209.