The First Online Course for Geotechnical and Environmental Engineering Postgraduate Begins

The first Sino-French online course for geotechnical and environmental engineering postgraduate was jointly organized by Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) and Multi-Physics and Multi-scale Couplings in Geo-environmental Mechanics, and co-organized by Central South University, Tongji University, Zhejiang University, Beijing Jiaotong University and Southeast University. And a series of online courses for postgraduate were based on the Base for Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities—Intelligent Construction and Safety of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of SWJTU . This online course would be held from May 17 to May 20. It aimed to cultivate students into scientists in the future and encourage some outstanding students to be doctoral candidates with specified theses. And some well-known experts and scholars in the field of geotechnical and underground engineering from home and abroad would be invited to deliver online lectures for postgraduate. The course would be taught in English and the main lessons would include Elasticity, Fundamentals of plasticity theory, Critical state soil modeling, Continuum Mechanics modeling, Implementation of constitutive models into finite element code, From discrete to continuum, Practice of constitutive modelling, Practice of DEM: how to write a DEM code/ using YADE.

The first online course for geotechnical and environmental engineering postgraduate began in Room 1113, Civil Engineering Building, Jiuli Campus of SWJTU on May 17, 2021. Zheng Haitao, Deputy Director of the Office of International Cooperation and Exchanges of SWJTU, and Professor NICOT Francois from GDRI GeoMech, delivered the opening speech respectively on behalf of SWJTU and Multi-Physics and Multi-scale Couplings in Geo-environmental Mechanics. Chen Rong, Vice Dean of School of Civil Engineering (SCE) of SWJTU and Yuan Shengyang, Associate Professor of SCE attended the opening ceremony.

The first lecture of Sino-French online course for geotechnical and environmental engineering postgraduate,Elasticity, was given by Professor Zhang Dongmei from Tongji University. Mrs. Zhang elaborated stress tensor and strain tensor to the students in detail. At the beginning of her lecture, Mrs. Zhang helped the students review the basic knowledge of tensor analysis. Then she introduced stress tensor and strain tensor as well as relevant application, and finally Mrs. Zhang explained the related exercises for the students.

The second lectureFundamentals of plasticity theorywas given Professor Pierre-Yves Hicher from Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France. Mr. Hicher first introduced to the students about the current research team and research institutes of Ecole Centrale de Nantes on the characteristics of rock and soil mechanics, and then shared with the students relevant theories of this field. Mr. Hicher started from how rock and soil materials were deformed, yielded and failed, took the stress-strain curve of the medium as the main body, and explained the elastic state, yield state, plastic state and failure limit state of common geotechnical materials like clay, fine sand, coarse-grained soil in detail. During the lecture, there were several times for exchanges and questions. As for the specific content of the lecture, students asked questions very actively and Mr. Hicher answered these questions with great patience.

According to the online course schedule, more wonderful lectures would be given later. Stay tuned.