Virtual laboratory for microcracks prediction in refractory materials

Virtual laboratory for microcracks prediction in refractory materials

02/06/2026 Financement de l'Union européenne

Limoges (18 months) and Lyon (18 months) - Nouvelle Aquitaine - France

Virtual laboratory for microcracks prediction in refractory materials

Discrete Element Method (DEM), microstructure, refractory, thermo-mechanics

Objectives: To develop digital modelling tools supporting refractory digital twins in order to investigate therelationships between microstructure, processing routes and thermomechanical performance. The work will combine physics-based approaches and numerical simulations, including thermo-mechanical coupling, damage evolution and anisotropic behaviours. These developments will lead to a virtual digital framework able to provide predictive indicators, virtual testing and decision-support for lifetime and performance assessment, in connection with REFFRACTEUR data architectures. These developments will be integrated to the free DEM software GranOO.

Expected Results: Validation of the digital twin approach against experiments through (i) thermo-mechanicalquantities such as CTE, Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio, stress-strain law, fracture energy) and (ii) microcrackinitiation, closure and coalescence under thermo-mechanical loading dynamically observed by SEM/microtomography. A validated virtual lab will provide predictive indicators and virtual tests.

Two host institutions (one academic and one industrial)

Academic host – IRCER (Institute of Research on Ceramics, Limoges, France) is a leading research laboratory in advanced ceramics and high-temperature materials, with expertise spanning microstructure characterization, thermomechanics, durability, and numerical modelling of materials for extreme environments.

Industrial host – Imerys (Lyon, France) is a world leader in mineral-based specialty solutions for industry, developing high-performance refractory materials for demanding applications such as steel, glass, cement, and other high-temperature processes.

Master’s level in Materials Science and/or Computational Methods in Mechanical Engineering. Excellent skills for numerical method applied to mechanics. A good knowledge in material science and their associated experimental characterisation technics is also expected. Oral and written communicationskills (English) are also required. Some experiences in Python and/or C++ programming will be appreciated.