Centrif-UGE
It is one of the stars of the Nantes Campus, listed on almost every visit. Commissioned in 1985 in a speciallye quipped building of 900 m2, the geotechnical centrifuge - we say "the centrif" - allows the study of the behavior of geotechnical structures, such as foundations, off-shore anchors, embankments or retaining walls, in reduced scale models. The scale reduction factor of the model is equal to the centrifugal acceleration applied, max. 100xg! Loads are applyed in flight using jacks, actuators or the robot remotelycontrolled from the command room. The results obtained can be directly transposed to full-scale prototypes. Thanks to the workshops integrated into the centrifuge team, all the experimental phases can be carried out on site, from the construction of the test models to the processing of the data collected during the tests.
