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ESPCI Paris - PSL
ESPCI Paris - PSL is a major institution of higher education (a French "Grande École d’ingénieurs"), an internationally renowned research center, and a fertile ground of innovation for industry. Founded by the City of Paris in 1882, for over a century the School has attracted leading scientific innovators like Nobel Prize laureates Pierre and Marie Curie, Paul Langevin, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, and Georges Charpak, who continue to contribute to the institution’s international reputation. The School’s culture of excellence remains as vibrant as ever. Fully 60% of (...)
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Welcome to PSL University! By joining ESPCI paris- PSL, you also join PSL university and its 17 000 students. You get access to an exceptionnel education in sciences, arts, litterature and culture. From Bachelor to PhD, academic programs cover all the fields from sciences, human and social sciences, engineering and arts. PSL targets high-potential students, from every horizon, an accompagnies them towards excellence. Your education will be operated by ESPCI paris - PSL, and your degree delivered by PSL University. Discover the education programs of PSL University Ingénieur ESPCI Paris - (...)
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ESPCI Paris - PSL is home to 10 research laboratories (all of them being endorsed and jointly sponsored by CNRS) operating at the frontiers of scientific knowledge and experimental know-how, extending from fundamental research to innovation, and covering areas ranging from polymers to telecommunications, from nanobiophysics to organic synthesis, from environmental science to biomedical imaging, from neurobiology to microfluidics, from soft matter to quantum physics, and from colloids to prototyping for industry. ESPCI researchers publish around 500 scientific articles in leading (...)
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ESPCI: generating innovation and jobs ESPCI is also known for its capacity to encourage major innovations. Did you know that as well as radium, polonium, actinium and lutecium, many other objects from our everyday lives were first discovered or created at ESPCI, like the neon tube, the black box, the quartz watch, sonar, wireless technology, self-healing rubber or even ultrafast ultrasound imaging? An entrepreneurial culture More and more graduates create their own companies after graduation or after their PhD. This capacity to innovation is highly valued today. ESPCI courses (...)
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The Department of International Relations is pursuing the intellectual globalisation in postgraduate education and interdisciplinary research, ambitioned since the foundation of our institution, and welcoming the most talented people from around the world. We are focusing on branding of the iconic French elite engineering education and boosting european and international mobilities throughout the world-distinguished institutions. French Engeering Degree webpage Master Programme webpage Doctoral Study (...)
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ESPCI Paris is at the center of a large network of partnering agreements. These are three-way institutional partnerships - notably with the City of Paris, and ParisTech -, as well as academic, scientific and industrial partnerships enriched by the School’s energy, expertise and creativity. The commitment to transdisciplinarity extends beyond the School’s Paris campus. Today’s complex scientific and technological issues often demand a broader view and collaboration, with the deployment of complementary, hybrid approaches and the sharing of best practices in order to pool resources and (...)

Probing quicksand with ultrasound

Print version of this article

15/04/2019

Involved in phenomena such as quicksand, soil liquefaction is a phenomenon that still holds mysteries. Researchers at Institut Langevin (CNRS, ESPCI Paris, PSL University) shed new light on this phenomenon, showing that it could be caused by vibration-induced lubrication between soil grains. This result, published in Scientific Reports, is based on measurements carried out with ultrasound.

Soil liquefaction may lead to considerable damage such as collapse of buildings, dams or bridges. Under the effect of a seismic shock, an initially loose granular soil tends to compact. The water it contains rises and temporarily suspends the grains that compose it. In this phase, the soil behaves like a loose rock, which no longer offers any resistance to an external loading. In the case of an initially compact soil, researchers from Institut Langevin (CNRS, ESPCI Paris, PSL University) discovered that this transition from a solid-like state to a fluid-like state rather resulted from an acoustic lubrication: Soil vibrations, emitted in the acoustic range, reduce the friction between grains. These latter then slide over each other, without any rearrangement visible to the naked eye.

The experimental setup consists of a Plexiglas container filled with glass beads of 100 micrometers in diameter and saturated with water. A steel ball of a few millimeters is placed at the top. The sinking of this intruder is tracked thanks to an ultrasound transducer, which is able to follow it even when completely immersed. The intruder remains initially in place until horizontal vibrations are applied to the container. Above certain amplitude of vibration, the intruder begins to sink and descend deeper and deeper into the ground, without any rise in the water level or any visible macroscopic grain rearrangements. This study could pave the way for a better understanding of landslides caused by vibrations, whether these are related to human activities or natural phenomena, such as volcanoes.

Related publication
S. van den Wildenberg, X. Jia, J. Léopoldès, & A. Tourin. Ultrasonic tracking of a sinking ball in a vibrated dense granular suspension. Scientific Reports volume 9, Article number: 5460 (2019).

Contact

Arnaud Tourin
arnaud.tourin@espci.fr

Xiaoping Jia
xiaoping.jia@espci.fr

ÉCOLE SUPÉRIEURE DE PHYSIQUE ET DE CHIMIE INDUSTRIELLES DE LA VILLE DE PARIS

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