Noemie Prime

Université Savoie Mont Blanc - LOCIE

Although hygrothermal properties of rammed earth represent great potential for improving thermal comfort during hot summers, still little knowledge is available about this topic. The literature lacks complete sets of hygrothermal characteristics of rammed earth, although they are fundamental for heat and moisture transfer modeling necessary to pred...

Rammed earth construction is built by compacting humid soil into formworks layer by layer, using clay fraction as only binder between the grains, without firing procedure. At this stage, the material is unsaturated, and capillary forces thus act to add cohesion between particles. Indeed, a peculiarity of this material is its high hygroscopic capaci...

Nowadays these structures are at the end of their theoretical life according to Eurocode 2. It is entitled to ask questions about their state of health, and whether these structures are still able to ensure their activity in respect of constantly evolving regulations, while ensuring public safety. To tender to answer these questions, we have develo...

The influence of hydric state on the elasto-viscoplastic behaviour of a unstabilised rammed earth (URE) wall has yet to be studied in the literature. This paper presents an experimental campaign on a rammed earth wall. The aim is to evaluate the link between the mechanical properties (including viscosity) and the varying hydric state inside the dry...

Extended Abstract In France in 2017 MTES ministry published that GES emissions of building life are responsible for 27% of GES emissions, among which construction of building accounts for 7% emission. Moreover, CEREMA specifies that, analyzing the whole life cycle analysis of a single building (taking 50 years of use), the emission during construct...

Extended Abstract Currently, the buildings exploitation and construction are responsible for over one-third of global final energy consumption and nearly 40% of total direct and indirect CO2 emissions [1]. Concerning the manufacture of the material a large part of this energy demand is used cement/lime production and to transport building materials...

Rammed earth structures are very sensitive to hydric conditions. Experimental studies have been undertaken to understand the link between liquid water transfer and mechanical behavior at structural scale. This study was done on a prismatic rammed earth sample of 15cm x 15cm x 45cm, structured as a wall element with several layers. Samples were subj...

Rammed earth structures are very sensitive to hydric conditions. Experimental studies have been undertaken to understand the link between liquid water transfer and mechanical behavior at structural scale. This study was done on a prismatic rammed earth sample of 15cm x 15cm x 45cm, structured as a wall element with several layers. Samples were subj...

Rammed earth has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint and limit the energy consumption in the building sector due to its sustainable characteristics. Still, its use is not generalized due to a lack of understanding of the material behavior, notably its sensitivity to water. The coupled hydro-mechanical behavior has been recently studied in...

Rammed earth structures are very sensitive to hydric conditions. Experimental studies have been undertaken to understand the link between liquid water transfer and mechanical behavior at structural scale. This study was done on a prismatic rammed earth sample of 15cm x 15cm x 45cm, structured as a wall element with several layers. Samples were subj...

Searching for recyclable materials of construction, in the objective of building sobriety and resilience, is a major issue of our current societies. Mudbricks of compacted rammed earth represent an ancient construction material with many advantages associated with its availability, cost of production, potential reuse, and with a very low carbon foo...

Rammed earth construction provides an efficient alternative construction material to limit energy consumption and CO 2 emission. It possesses various characteristics of a sustainable material, but its mechanical capacity is sensitive to humidity variations. It is, therefore, important to better understand water transport within rammed earth when su...

This study concerns the coupled hydro-mechanical behavior of rammed earth, which is a real difficulty for the development of this construction technique. Unconfined compressive strength tests on samples conditioned at different relative humidities were performed to determine the variation of mechanical capacity with suction. Both compressive streng...

Rammed earth is a construction material but also construction technique by which soil is dynamically compacted into a temporary formwork to form walls. This construction exhibits mechanical characteristics that vary according to their suction states. Despite its numerous advantages as a sustainable construction material, the strength characteristic...

Rammed earth, in the current environmental situation, is an alternative construction technique which can help in reducing energy and raw material consumption owing to its "sustainable" characteristics. To fully understand its behavior and properties, recent scientific investigations consider it as a compacted unsaturated material with suction as it...

Earth is an ancient building material which has been recently the focus of scientific research due to its sustainable properties. The disadvantage of earthen material is its low strength and its sensibility to the water content. To enhance the durability and the mechanical characteristics of earthen material, hydraulic binders are currently added (...

This paper presents a thermo-hydro-mechanical framework to model the drying behavior of Boom clay. First, the experimental campaign conducted Noémie Prime is briefly presented because it is used to validate the model. The data acquisition and processing is emphasized because of the use of X-ray microtomography to be able to more accurately compare...

A preliminary discrete numerical model of a REV at the front region of an erosion pipe in a cohesive granular soil is briefly presented. The results reported herein refer to a simulation carried out by coupling the Discrete Element Method (DEM) with the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) for the representation of the granular and fluid phases, respecti...

A granular soil REV located on the upstream side of the erosion pipe front is modelled numerically, at the grain scale, by coupling the Discrete Element Method (DEM) with the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) for the representation of the solid and fluid phases, respectively. The implementation of DEM follows a standard molecular dynamics approach and...

Les constructions en terre crue, comme le pisé, connaissent ces dernières années un regain d'intérêt de par leur faible énergie grise, la possibilité de recyclage du matériau, et leur intérêt en terme de confort hygrothermique. Dans l'objectif de mieux caractériser le comportement et la résistance de ces structures sous sollicitation sismique une p...

Ce papier présente le modèle utilisé pour simuler le séchage de l'argile de Boom. Une campagne expérimentale a été menée à bien [PRI 16] et ses résultats sont utilisés afin de valider le modèle utilisé. La première partie de ce papier est donc consacrée à un bref rappel de la campagne expérimentale. Ensuite, les différentes équations et paramètres...

Drying-induced shrinkage of geomaterials may have a strong effect on geostructure stability and deformation. The settlement of foundations and fracture openings in slopes, roads, and tunnel walls may be due to drying shrinkage. However, there is still a lack of knowledge concerning shrinkage evolution with time and shrinkage propagation within the...

Boom clay is studied as a potential host rock for underground nuclear waste storage. This experimental work analyzes its response under the convective drying conditions that may be applied in case of contact with the ambient atmosphere (during disposal drilling for instance) or with gallery ventilation (because of damage in gallery lining). The dry...

The convective drying of a natural porous material, limestone, is investigated in this study, with both experimental and numerical approaches. The first experimental campaign, which focuses on the influence of samples’ slenderness, suggests the presence of a hydraulic connection layer between the porous water and the external environment, in spite...

SUMMARY Given the contrasting behaviour observed for geomaterials, for example, during landslides of the flow type, this contribution proposes an original constitutive model, which associates both an elasto-plastic relation and a Bingham viscous law linked by a mechanical transition criterion. This last is defined as the second-order work sign for...

Understanding and modelling the whole instability mechanisms of a slope are fundamental issues from a scientific and technical viewpoint. To date, small strain Lagrangian approaches have mostly been used in solid mechanics for modelling the failure stage, whereas Eulerian approaches are common in fluid mechanics for propagation analysis. A combinat...

During mudflows, geomaterials evolve in a very specific manner, because initially they behave as solids, and then they turn to flow as viscous fluids. This paper proposes an original approach to simulate, within a single numerical framework, such a transition between a solid-like and a fluid-like behavior. The model used is based on the association...

The Finite Element Method with Lagrangian Integration Point (FEMLIP) is a particular numerical method initially developed for viscous flow study. The dissociation between the computational grid and the material points allows not only to describe the displacement of material without mesh distortion, but also to store history variables pertaining to...