Inauguration of the test platform for testing structures in their environments
Cachan – June 7, 2002

Paris, June 6, 2002

Geneviève Berger, Director-General of CNRS, Claire Dupas, Director of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, Jean-Paul Huchon, President of the Regional Council of Ile-de-France, Gilbert Béréziat, President of the Pierre-et-Marie Curie University, and Pierre Ladevèze, Director of the Laboratoire de mécanique et technologie (Mechanics and Technology Laboratory)/LMT-Cachan (CNRS, ENS Cachan and Pierre-et-Marie Curie University), are inaugurating the test platform for testing structures in their environments at ENS in Cachan on Friday June 7, 2002. This platform should make it possible to compare the reality of tests with virtual models, in the fields of aeronautics, space, or automobile research, for example. It has been produced by the Laboratoire de mécanique et technologie, in partnership with LESIR/SATIE(1) and with CMLA(2), all three of which are joint CNRS-ENS Cachan research units. It has received support from the French Ministry of Research, and it is the subject of a research network involving industry (EADS, SNECMA, ONERA…).

Over about the last fifteen years, genuinely quantitative tools have been in use for determining the gap between the virtual and the real. Over the same period, the tests for determining this "virtual/real gap", in particular the validation tests, have not changed very much. By means of tests on mini-structures, of associated measurements, and of comparisons with simulations of the theoretical model, the platform aims to develop new methods that take best advantage of the fantastic progress that scientific computing has enjoyed over the last twenty years.

The structure-testing platform should make it possible to conduct validation tests to improve the virtual models, on the basis of the most pertinent real situations. The objective is to master and to improve models of materials and of structures as used for a given application, in terms both of integrity or safety, and also of optimizing the material/structure/process trilogy. The project is, by essence, cross-disciplinary, closely intertwining communication and information science and technology (sensor, control, processing and digesting data, etc.) with engineering sciences (scientific computing, modeling and experimentation in material/structure/process, aggressive environment).

The platform is designed as a totally modular tool making it possible to test structures of various shapes and rigidities under complex and independent stresses. It is made up of an isolated body serving to test structures such as automobiles or small satellites, in static and vibratory domains. It is open, and, as and when required, it will integrate a wide variety of means for simulating the environment (tanks, enclosures, etc.), and a wide variety of measurement methods. The platform is connected to the parallel computer installed at LMT-Cachan.

(1) LESIR/SATIE: Laboratoire d’électricité signaux et robotique/Systèmes et application des technologies de l'information et de l'énergie (Laboratory for electricity, signals and robotics/Systems and applications of energy and information technologies).
(2) CMLA: Centre de mathématiques et de leurs applications (Center for mathematics and its applications).

Press contacts:

CNRS
Martine Hasler
Tel: +33 1 44 96 46 35
e-mail: martine.hasler@cnrs-dir.fr

ENS Cachan
Sylviane Audet
Tel: +33 1 47 40 22 64
e-mail: sylviane.audet@adm.ens-cachan.fr

LMT-Cachan
Olivier Allix
Tel: +33 1 47 40 27 35
e-mail: allix@lmt.ens-cachan.fr