Participant Support Cost for CAREER: Mechanics of Geomaterials Exposed to Multi-Physical Perturbations: Innovating Science, Training and Education through Fundamental Principles

Geomaterials are porous, discrete and heterogeneous media continuously exposed to interactions with the surrounding environment. These solids host multiple fluids, with which they establish physico-chemical interactions. Natural and human-induced changes in the environmental conditions modify their mechanical properties, thus promoting the onset of deformation and failure and affecting activities such as the forecasting of natural hazards, the management of aging infrastructures, the optimization of energy technologies and the underground storage of hazardous substances. Despite the various studies that have tackled the multi-physics of geomaterials, the last decades of research have produced very few theoretical works that have framed these problems in the context of material stability. As a result, engineers and scientists rely exclusively on conventional interpretation methods which are rigorously valid only for uncoupled mechanical problems. The goal of this CAREER project is to formulate innovative approaches to quantify the risk of failure induced by multi-physical agents, link theories with predictive models and use these tools for interpretation and prediction purposes.