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The need for a vast quantity of new buildings to address the increase in population and living standards is opposed to the need for tackling global warming and the decline in biodiversity. To overcome this twofold challenge, there is a need to move towards a more circular economy by widely using a combination of alternative low-carbon construction materials, alternative technologies and practices. Soils or earth were widely used by builders before World War II, as a primary resource to manufacture materials and structures of vernacular architecture. Centuries of empirical practices have led to a variety of techniques to implement earth, known as rammed earth, cob and adobe masonry among others. Earth refers to local soil with a variable composition but at least containing a small percentage of clay that would simply solidify by drying without any baking. This paper discusses why and how earth naturally embeds high-tech properties for sustainable construction. Then the potential of earth to contribute to addressing the global challenge of modern architecture and the need to re-think building practices is also explored. The current obstacles against the development of earthen architecture are examined through a survey of current earth building practitioners in Western Europe. A literature review revealed that, surprisingly, only technical barriers are being addressed by the scientific community; two-thirds of the actual barriers identified by the interviewees are not within the technical field and are almost entirely neglected in the scientific literature, which may explain why earthen architecture is still a niche market despite embodying all the attributes of the best construction material to tackle the current climate and economic crisis. This article is part of the theme issue ‘The role of soils in delivering Nature's Contributions to People’.

This study aims to produce novel composite artificial marble materials by bulk molding compound processes, and improve their thermal and mechanical properties. We employed stearic acid as an efficient surface modifying agent for CaCO3 particles, and for the first time, a pretreated, recycled, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers mat is used to reinforce the artificial marble materials. The innovative aspects of the study are the surface treatment of CaCO3 particles by stearic acid. Stearic acid forms a monolayer shell, coating the CaCO3 particles, which enhances the compatibility between the CaCO3 particles and the matrix of the composite. The morphology of the composites, observed by scanning electron microscopy, revealed that the CaCO3 phase was homogeneously dispersed in the epoxy matrix under the support of stearic acid. A single layer of a recycled PET fibers mat was pretreated and designed in the core of the composite. As expected, these results indicated that the fibers could enhance flexural properties, and impact strength along with thermal stability for the composites. This combination of a pretreated, recycled, PET fibers mat and epoxy/CaCO3-stearic acid could produce novel artificial marble materials for construction applications able to meet environmental requirements.

Rammed earth (RE) is a construction material manufactured from the soil. This material attracts the attention of numerous scientific investigations during the past decade due to its sustainable properties. The performance of RE buildings under horizontal loadings remains an important topic to be investigated. This paper presents an experimental study which identifies the limit states for the in-plane seismic assessment of RE walls. Four RE walls were tested under bi-axial loading: first a vertical force was applied on the top of the wall to simulate the dead and live loads in a building; then a horizontal force pushed at the top the walls to simulate a seismic action. The cracking evolution was recorded by using the DIC (digital image correlation) technique in which the displacement fields were determined by comparing the images taken after and before the loading. Based on the damage evolution observed during the tests and on a similar approach of unreinforced masonries, the present paper proposed four limit states for RE walls corresponding to the inter-storey drift δ: no damage (before LS1) and slight damages (before LS2): δ

International audience; A new concept for the soil nail walls is here proposed and validated through experimental and numerical approaches. This process, based on the use of precast elements that are easier to install, is cheaper and more aesthetic than the classical methods, but the main advantage is reducing the cement consumption which conducts to divided carbon footprint by three. In order to characterize the structural capacity of this new process, this article present an investigation on two in-situ representative walls, one in shotcrete which is the old way of construction, and the other, consisting the precast reinforced concrete slabs, which is the new process. We thus have a demonstrator on a real scale, and perfectly representative, since the constructive modes, as well as the mechanical, thermal, and hydric loadings are the real ones associated with the environment in situ. Substantial instrumentation has been realized over a long period (nearly 2 years), enabling to follow the evolution of the displacements of each wall and the efforts in the anchor nails. To determine the bearing capacity of the constituent element of the precast nail wall, an experimental study coupled with a numerical simulation has been conducted in the laboratory on a single precast slab. This study allows the evaluation of the load associated to crack initiation and the bearing capacity associated to the ultimate state, at the scale of the constituent elements. Finally, in order to evaluate the behaviour of the two concepts of nail walls in the case of extreme solicitation, a dynamic loading induced by an explosion has been conducted on the site.

Beam-column joints are critical regions for reinforced concrete (RC) frames subjected to earthquakes. The steel reinforcement is, in general, highly concentrated in these zones. This is why in many cases, headed bars are used. A headed bar is a longitudinal steel reinforcement whose end has a special button added to reduce the bonding length of the steel rebar. This paper establishes a formula predicting the shear strength of exterior RC beam-column connections where the beam longitudinal reinforcements use headed bars. A database was collected, which contained 30 experimental data about the exterior beam-column joints using headed bars and subjected to quasi-static cyclic loading. First, from the collected database, a statistical study was carried out to identify the most influencing parameters on the shear strength of the beam-column joints tested. The three most important parameters were identified and an empirical modified formula was developed based on the formula existing in the standards. The study showed that the results obtained from the modified formula proposed in the present study were closer to the experimental results than that obtained from the formula existing in the standards. Finally, a numerical study was performed on two T-form RC structures and the numerical results were compared with the prediction calculated from the modified formula proposed. For two investigated cases, the proposed formula provided the results in the safety side and the differences with the numerical results were less than 20%. Thus, the proposed formula can be used for a rapid assessment of the shear strength of RC joints using headed bars.

Beam-column joints are commonly considered critic regions for RC frames subjected to earthquake. That is why assessing the beam-column joint capacity is an important topic, especially for structures constructed before the modern seismic design codes, or for buildings in post-seismic situations. Among the in-situ structural assessment methods, the vibrational testing is currently mentioned. The authors have developed an analytical method to assess the damage evolution of a structure in function of its dynamic characteristics. The method consists of two main steps and the first one necessitates a robust model which can reproduce the static behavior of the studied structure. For this purpose, the authors try and assess the relevancy of existing numerical models to choose the most relevant for the second step. This paper presents an assessment of the CDP (Concrete Damage Plasticity) model implemented in the Abaqus software. First, an experimental study on a RC beam-column frames is presented. Unloading-reloading cycles were performed during the tests and the displacement fields were recorded by using the image correlation technique. The experimental data are used to assess the relevancy of the CDP model, but these data can be useful also for the further studies to verify and improve the accuracy of the numerical or analytical models.

The shear design of concrete slabs is still an unsolved problem. The following study presents experimental and numerical investigations on the shear behaviour of reinforced concrete slabs (without shear reinforcement) under concentrated loads. The small thick slabs of 10 cm were tested in this study. Experimental tests were conducted to quantify the shear strength and the associated failure modes. The influence of several variables was addressed such as the influence of boundary conditions, four supported side slabs instead of two supported side slabs, the influence of loading plate length. A series of eight tests on six slabs were presented. The experiments are firstly used to evaluate the pertinence of Eurocode 2 and Model Code 2010 formulations using the levels of approximation LoA I and LoA II for the shear design of reinforced concrete slabs without shear reinforcement in comparison with the French approach, and secondly validated numerical modelling using the non-linear finite element method. The proposed numerical model showed good agreement with the experimental results in terms of slab behaviour.; La conception au cisaillement de dalles en béton reste encore un problème irrésolu. L'étude suivante présente des investigations numérique et expérimentale sur le comportement au cisaillement de dalles en béton armé (sans renforcement au cisaillement) sous charge localisée. Des dalles de faible épaisseur (10cm) ont été testées dans cette étude. Les essais ont permis de quantifier la résistance au cisaillement et les modes de rupture associés. L'influence de plusieurs paramètres a été étudiée telles que les conditions-limites ou les dimensions du plateau de chargement. Une série de 8 essais sur 6 dalles est présentée. Les expériences ont été dans un premier temps, utilisées pour évaluer la pertinence des formules de l'Eurocode 2 et du ModelCode 2010 en utilisant les niveaux d'approximation LoAI et LoAII pour le dimensionnement au cisaillement de dalles en béton armé sans renforcement au cisaillement en comparaison de l'approche française. Dans un second temps, les résultats ont été validés numériquement par une méthode aux éléments finis non-linaires. Le modèle numérique proposé a montré une bonne adéquation avec les résultats expérimentaux en termes de de comportement de dalle.

International audience; Rammed earth (RE) is attracting renewed interest throughout the world because of its low embodied energy and its interesting hygric-thermal behavior. Several studies have recently been carried out to investigate this material. However, the seismic behavior of RE walls is still an important subject that needs to be more thoroughly investigated. The present study assesses the seismic performance of RE walls by using the discrete element modeling (DEM) and the nonlinear pushover method. Firstly, nonlinear “force–displacement” curves of the studied wall were obtained by DEM. Secondly, the standard “acceleration–displacement” curves were carried out following Eurocode 8. Thirdly, the above curves were superimposed to determine the intersection point (target point) which enabled to assess the seismic performance of the studied wall in the corresponding conditions (vertical load, seismic zone). The results show that the studied walls can have satisfactory resistance in seismicity zones ranging from “very low” to “moderate” (according to Eurocode 8). For “medium” seismicity zones, the studied structures should only be constructed on A-type soils (very good soil). For B-type soils, wall reinforcement techniques would be necessary. Without special reinforcements, studied RE structures seem unsuitable for “strong” seismicity zones, for all soil types.

International audience; Rammed earth is attracting renewed interest throughout the world thanks to its “green” characteristics in the context of sustainable development. Several research studies have thus recently been carried out to investigate this material. Some of them attempted to simulate the rammed earth’s mechanical behavior by using analytical or numerical models. Most of these studies assumed that there was a perfect cohesion at the interface between earthen layers. This hypothesis proved to be acceptable for the case of vertical loading, but it could be questionable for horizontal loading. To address this problem, discrete element modeling seems to be relevant to simulate a rammed earth wall. To our knowledge, no research has been conducted thus far using discrete element modeling to study a rammed earth wall. This paper presents an assessment of the discrete element modeling’s robustness for rammed earth walls. Firstly, a brief description of the discrete element modeling is presented. Then the parameters necessary for discrete element modeling of the material law of the earthen layers and their interfaces law following the Mohr–Coulomb model with a tension cut-off and post-peak softening were given. The relevance of the model and the material parameters were assessed by comparing them with experimental results from the literature. The results showed that, in the case of vertical loading, interfaces did not have an important effect. In the case of diagonal loading, model with interfaces produced better results. Interface characteristics can vary from 85 to 100% of the corresponding earthen layer’s characteristics.

International audience; Après un événement (séisme, modifications du voisinage, ...), une structure BA peut être endommagée. La capacité résistante de cette structure peut être évaluée par des mesures vibratoires. A l'heure actuelle, ce type de mesures permet le diagnostic à l'échelle globale (toute la structure) et de manière qualitative alors que la localisation et la quantification des endommagements restent encore à approfondir. Dans le cadre de cette recherche, le diagnostic à l'échelle locale d'une structure poteaux-poutres béton armé instrumentée en laboratoire est étudié. Ce travail s'insère dans un contexte national de réévaluation des structures existantes. En première partie, le travail de recherche a commencé par une expérimentation en laboratoire sur une structure poteaux-poutres de type H (deux poteaux et une poutre). Différentes sollicitations croissantes ont été imposées au milieu de la poutre correspondant à différents états d'endommagement. Des mesures de champs de déplacement de toute la structure et des mesures vibratoires par accéléromètres ont été effectuées. A partir des mesures vibratoires, les caractéristiques dynamiques de la structure ont été identifiées (fréquences propres, déformées modales). Ces caractéristiques ont permis de caler un modèle numérique EF simplifié (établi par Matlab), qui utilise les éléments « barres » et les connexions semi-rigides entre les poteaux et les poutres. Les rigidités de ces connexions ont été identifiées par des boucles d'optimisation pour trouver les résultats qui s'approchent le plus des résultats expérimentaux. Les rigidités identifiées des connexions sont utilisées pour calculer des facteurs de rigidités qui varient entre 0 (rotule parfaite) et 1 (encastrement parfait). Ils apportent des informations sur l'état d'endommagement des connexions étudiées. Par conséquent, l'évaluation des connexions par des mesures dynamiques, à l'échelle du laboratoire, est possible. En deuxième partie, pour pouvoir vérifier l'influence des endommagements locaux sur d'une part, la réponse dynamique globale de la structure et d'autre part, sur la capacité structurelle globale de toute la structure, un code EF plus complexe (Castem) a été utilisé. Des éléments poutres multifibres ont été utilisés pour modéliser la structure du type portique. Dans un premier temps, les paramètres des matériaux (« béton » et « acier ») ont été identifiés en fonction des résultats expérimentaux sur les matériaux. Ensuite, le résultat numérique sur le portique est comparé avec l'expérimentation. La pertinence du modèle numérique dans l'évaluation de la capacité de la structure après les premiers endommagements est discutée.

International audience; Nowadays, rammed earth construction is attracting renewed interest throughout the world thanks to its "green" characteristics in the context of sustainable development. Firstly, using a local material (soil on site or near the site), rammed earth constructions have very low embodied energy. Secondly, rammed earth houses have an attractive appearance and present advantageous living comfort due to substantial thermal inertia and the "natural regulator of moisture" of rammed earth walls. This is why several research studies have been carried out recently to study the mechanical and thermal characteristics of rammed earth. However, to our knowledge, there are not yet sufficient studies on the tensile strength and the shear strength of rammed earth. The tensile strength of rammed earth is neglected in general due to its very low value, but in extreme conditions (e.g., seismic conditions), knowing the tensile strength is necessary for structural design. Moreover, the shear strength is required in many cases to check the local failure of rammed earth quickly, which has been observed in old structures (especially those submitted to concentrated loads). This paper presents experimental results on tensile strengths and the Poisson ratio of rammed earth specimens. Local failure tests were also conducted on 1 m × 1 m × 0.3 m wallettes manufactured in the laboratory. The shear strength was then identified using a simple method based on compressive strength, tensile strength and Mohr's circle theory. The approach proposed was validated by tests on the wallettes. Finite Element (FE) modeling was also carried out to confirm the results. Last, the method presented was validated for stabilized rammed earth lintels presented in the literature.

There are many of the examples of dynamics measurements applications in the existing building: verification of structural seismic vulnerability, which was constructed before the earthquake building code; auscultation of structural capacity in post-earthquake situation or after modification in surround environment (Excavation of tunnel or demolition the neighbour buildings for example). Currently, this measurement type enables the diagnosis a structure in global scale (a whole structure) while identification and localization of damage in local scale (each elements of the structure) remains to be explored. In this dissertation, diagnosis in locale scale will be studied. This study is significant for its contribution to the national reassessment of existing structures where there is the large number of buildings to be rehabilitated, Les applications des mesures dynamiques sur les bâtiments existants sont nombreuses : vérification de la vulnérabilité sismique des structures qui ont été construites avant l’apparition des règles parasismiques ; auscultation de la capacité des structures en situation post-sismique ou après des modifications au voisinage (creusement d’un tunnel à côté ou démolition des immeubles voisins par exemple). A l’heure actuelle, ce type de mesure permet le diagnostic d’une structure à l’échelle globale (toute la structure) alors que l’identification et la localisation des endommagements à l’échelle locale (chaque élément de la structure) restent encore à approfondir. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, le diagnostic à l’échelle locale des structures sera étudié. Cette thèse s’insère dans un contexte national de réévaluation des structures existantes du fait du nombre important de bâtiments à réhabiliter. Au sein du LOCIE, nous pensons que le comportement global des bâtiments est certes influencé par l’interaction sol-structure mais au moins autant par la qualité des connexions des éléments de structures entre eux. Il existe un besoin de qualification de ces connexions dont la variabilité du comportement peut provenir aussi bien de défauts de mise en œuvre (positionnement des armatures,…) que du vieillissement des structures. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de proposer une méthode pouvant caractériser les liaisons entre les éléments de structure afin de pouvoir caler un modèle numérique. Ces caractérisations devaient être possibles à partir de mesures de sollicitations dynamiques. Une première étape de ce travail consistera à caractériser sur une partie de structure une liaison. Cela sera fait sur un portique en béton armé. Par la suite, cette méthode sera adaptée à une caractérisation au sein d’une structure de bâtiment. Pour cela nous ferons appel à la notion de sous-modèle. Un modèle numérique sera associé à cette méthode aussi bien sur la connexion simple que sur l’ensemble du bâtiment. Le travail de thèse s’appuiera sur l’utilisation et le développement de techniques concernant le traitement des données dynamiques ; la réduction de modèles ; l’expérimentation en laboratoire (échelle locale et échelle d’un élément de structure) et la modélisation numérique par éléments finis à plusieurs échelles

Determining the mechanical behavior of rammed earth walls is a highly important feature giving that there is a renewed interest in the use of the natural material in building construction. On one hand, it contributes to finding suitable and appropriate ways for the conservation and restoration of these building and on another hand, it draws new recommendations for the conception of new rammed earth structures with respect to new building regulations (earthquake building guideline, new thermal regulation).In this context, this thesis investigates the behavior of rammed earth walls subjected to lateral loading. Four unstabilized rammed earth walls were tested under a combination of vertical and monotonic pushover tests up to failure. The shear behavior of these walls is studied along with the failure modes by means of digital image correlation. Results showed that the response of the rammed earth is characterized by significant non-linear behavior with a remarkable ductility. In general, the walls experienced a shear failure due to the failure of diagonal struts. Cracks at the interface between the bottom layers were also observed.The performance of these walls was assessed based on the pushover methodology. The experimental work was completed with the determination of the mechanical characteristics of rammed earth in compression and an investigation of the shear components: cohesion and friction angle of the rammed earth through shear box tests on a different scale. Finally, the relevance of these parameters was tested by performing a numerical model that aims to simulate the experimental tests done on the scale of the walls., La détermination des comportements mécaniques des murs en pisé est d’une importance capitale dans un contexte où il y a un regain d’intérêt pour l’utilisation de matériaux de construction à très faible impact environnementaux. D’une part, cette étude contribue à trouver des moyens appropriés pour la conservation et la restauration du patrimoine bâti et, d’autre part, permet d’établir de nouvelles recommandations pour la conception de nouvelles structures en pisé dans le respect des règlements de la construction (réglementation thermique et réglementation parasismique).Dans ce contexte, cette thèse étudie le comportement des murs en pisé soumis à des sollicitations horizontales. Quatre murs de terre en pisé non stabilisés ont été testés sous une combinaison de charge verticale et horizontale monotone (type pushover) jusqu'à la rupture. Le comportement au cisaillement et les modes de ruptures de ces murs sont étudiés à l’aide d’une technique de corrélation d’images à grande échelle. Les résultats ont montré que le pisé est caractérisé par un comportement mécanique non linéaire très significatif et une ductilité remarquable. D’une manière générale, les murs ont subi une rupture de cisaillement due à une fissuration principale au niveau de la bielle de compression. Des fissures à l'interface entre les différentes couches ont également été observées.L'évaluation de la performance de ces murs a été effectuée sur la base de la méthodologie pushover. Le travail expérimental a été complété avec la détermination des caractéristiques mécaniques du matériau pisé en compression puis une étude en cisaillement directe (cohésion et angle de frottement) à l’aide de deux boites de Casagrande de tailles différentes. Enfin, l’importance de ces paramètres a été analysée en réalisant des simulations numériques à l’échelle du mur.