More than 170 dedicated individuals

The Navier Laboratory brings together more than 170 people working on the mechanics and physics of materials, structures and geomaterials. Its research covers civil engineering, the environment and sustainable development, energy and transport.

The applications relate in particular to eco-design, sustainability and structural and materials engineering, geotechnics, geological storage (radioactive waste, CO2, gas), petrochemicals engineering and the control of noise pollution, with contractual activity in all these fields.

Theoretical, numerical and experimental research

The research approaches are theoretical and numerical (scale change methods, discrete simulations, finite element methods, etc.) as well as experimental, notably entailing the use of large apparatus (Magnetic Resonance Imager, Microtomograph, Single Ring Shear Apparatus, Calibration Chamber) and demonstrators (composite material bridge, grid-shells, mixed concrete and wood structures, etc.).

A lab structured into six teams

• the “Geotechnics (CERMES)” team (leader J. Sulem) does experimental, theoretical and numerical research in soil and rock mechanics, in three domains: geotechnical structures, geomechanics and energy, and natural risks.
• the “Structural Dynamics and Identification” team (leader D. Duhamel)  explores dynamic problems from varied perspectives:  tyre noise, vibrations in flexible bridges, nonlinear dynamics, hysteresis models,…
• the “Architectured Materials and Structures” team (leader J.-F. Caron)  tackles research in structural and materials mechanics with applications associated with the eco-design of optimum complex architectures, and with the diagnosis, reinforcement, repair and rehabilitation of structures.. 
• the “Multiscale Modelling and Experimentation for Heterogeneous Solids” team (leader M. Bornert)  seeks to understand the behaviour of materials by the analysis of the elementary physical mechanisms interacting in them at microstructural scale and to use scale changes to construct behaviour laws that can be used in computational codes, based on this knowledge.
• the “Physics and Mechanics of Porous Media” team (leader  P. Coussot) conducts research on physical, chemical and mechanical processes in porous materials, primarily in civil engineering (cement, concretes, rocks, clays, soils, wood).
• the “Rheophysics” team (leader X. Chateau) works on the rheological description of pastes, suspensions and granular materials in their liquid and solid state, and seeks to understand the microscopic origin of their behaviour at the scale of particles and their interactions.