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

• 2022 –          : Emeritus senior researcher
• 2011-  2022 : 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
• 2022 –          : Chair, GeoEngineers without Barriers Committee, International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE)
• 2013 – 2022 : Chair, Technical Oversight Presidential Board Level Committee,  (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 (9^th French Conf. on Soil and Rock Mechanics), 13 – 15 June, Ecole des ponts ParisTech
• 2015 – 2016: Chair of the Organising Committee, 4^th 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, 18^th 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)

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 include the mechanical behaviour of Martian regoliths, in link with the NASA InSight mission (2018 – 2022) 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 and Lunar regoliths (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, NASA, CNES, UniAndes Bogota)
• Mechanical behaviour of multiphase chalks: North sea oil reservoirs, stability of chalk quarries
• Soil reinforcement (nailing, fibres)
• Soil pollution by NAPL

Pierre Delage participated to the launching of the following courses:

• 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"

See list of publications here. Recent papers include the following:

• Barakat Y., Mokni N., Cui Y.J., Delage P. & Bernier B. 2024. Effects of hyperalkaline solutions on the water retention properties and microstructure of the Opalinus Clay from the lower sandy facies of Mont Terri site, Switzerland. Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2024.04.015
• Delage P. Caicedo B., Golombek M., Spohn T., Schmelzbach C., Brinkman N., et al. 2023. Investigating the Martian soil at the InSight landing site. Soils and Rocks, https://doi.org/10.28927/SR.2024.005023 .Caicedo B., Castillo-Betancourt J.-P., P. Delage, P. Lognonné and B. Banerdt. 2023. Wave velocities and poisson ratio in a loose sandy martian regolith simulant under low stresses. Part 2: theoretical analysis. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, doi:10.1029/2023JE008008Castillo-Betancourt J.-P., P. Delage, B. Caicedo, P. Lognonné and B. Banerdt. 2023. Wave velocities and Poisson ratio in a loose sandy martian regolith simulant under low stresses. Part 1: laboratory investigation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets,

  doi:10.1029/2023JE007988

  Verdier N., V. Ansan, P. Delage, K.S. Ali, E. Beucler, C. Charalambous, E. Constant, et al. 2023. Using wind dispersion effects during the InSight tether burial activities to better constrain the regolith grain size distribution. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets,

  doi: 10.1029/2022JE007707

  Zheng Y., Baudet B., Delage P., Pereira J.M., Sammonds P. 2022. Pore changes in an illitic clay during one-dimensional compression. Géotechnique, doi 10.1680/jgeot.21.00206.

  Braun P., Delage P., Ghabezloo S., Chabot B., Conil N., Vu M. N. 2022. Inducing tensile failure of claystone through thermal pressurization in a novel triaxial device. Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, doi:10.1007/s00603-022-02838-3.

  Delage P., Castillo Betancourt J.P., Caicedo Hormaza B., Karakostas F., De Laure E., et al. 2022. The interaction between the SEIS seismometer of the InSight Martian mission and a regolith simulant, Géotechnique, doi:10.1680/jgeot.21.00171.

  Delage P., Belmokhtar M. 2021. Drained triaxial testing of shales: insight from the Opalinus Clay. Acta Geotechnica, doi 10.1007/s11440-021-01395-3.