Sustainability and Green Building Platform

The Sustainability and Green building platform provides researchers at the Research Institute in Civil and Mechanical Engineering (GeM) with experimental facilities designed to broaden the understanding of civil engineering and enable them to carry out full- or half-scale experiments on structures or structural components. What makes these facilities particularly distinctive is that they let researchers study the relationships between the composition, application processes and durability of materials.
 
In order to meet the challenges of civil engineering and sustainable urban management - managing construction risks, assessing the ageing of structures, taking climate change into account, environmental impacts associated with construction - the platform brings together experimental tools adapted to the design and management of the life cycle of structures, capable of integrating the influence of specific or extreme environmental actions and severe stresses on structures during their operation.

The platform is undergoing constant development, with the main aims being to develop new technologies, new materials and more effective calculation tools for the design and monitoring of structures. The socio-economic impact of this work primarily benefits the partner companies, for whom the main objective is to strengthen their competitiveness in both the French and, in particular, international markets.

This room is used for characterisation, i.e. the study of the physical properties of materials before or after degradation. This lab is equipped with high-precision equipment such as a rheometer for studying the viscosity of materials, and an X-ray diffractometer (DRX), for detailed analysis of the chemical composition of materials. The lab is also equipped with a 3D video microscope to study the singularities of sample surfaces, and a thermo-gravimetric analyser.
Other equipment includes a calorimeter, a conductometer, a carbonation chamber, an ion chromatograph, a mercury porosimeter, etc.
   

Virtually unique in France, this test platform has been specially designed to support tests on structures subjected to very high loads (large deformations, prestressed structures, etc.). It can be used for large-scale tests on walls and beams.  Structural testing involves measuring mechanical resistance in bending or compression, with very high-precision deformation control. Precise measurement systems such as high-speed cameras for digital image correlation and acoustic emission sensor systems are installed. The platform also includes unique measurement benches, such as those for measuring run-off and drainage of road structures, measuring the permeability of concrete to water vapour at high temperatures under load, etc.

The equipment in this lab is mainly used to study the shrinkage and creep of cementitious materials.
A bench for measuring liquid screed is used to study creep deformations in concrete. This high-precision equipment enables tests requiring large quantities of materials and space to be reproduced on a reduced scale.
Other equipment is used to measure the longitudinal shrinkage of cementitious materials, resistance to pull-out and maintenance under constant stress. Creep tests can also be used to study the viscoelasticity of materials. An original device has recently been developed to measure the creep of concrete immersed in reconstituted seawater.
 

The TSTM bench is a precision electromechanical machine. It is equipped with LVDT sensors and a displacement control system for micron-level accuracy on a one-metre-long specimen. The machine supports two test specimens: one mechanically loaded and the other unloaded and freely retractable. The test bench will be used to optimise research on susceptibility of cementitious materials to cracking, particularly in the study of low-carbon materials with low greenhouse gas emissions. The GeM is the first French university laboratory to have this device.

The room is temperature-controlled to manage moisture exchange between the material and its environment.

This room stores samples for the purpose of curing, i.e. to limit the evaporation of samples at a young age in order to optimise the internal humidity before testing on the various platforms.

Preparation platform

This platform is used for the preparation of test specimens in order to manage all contingencies during preparation. This provides greater control over preparation procedures.