Vibrations are encountered in many components of nuclear reactors subject to fluid flows (steam generator for example). Resulting impacts and friction contacts can lead to wear of the materials which must be controlled for improved maintenance and to guarantee the lifespan of these industrial components.
Thus, it is necessary to know the solicitation experienced by the structure, define a reliable modeling of the system and implement efficient and accurate numerical methods to obtain the non-linear dynamic responses of the system.
In order to improve the robustness and performance of the numerical methods currently used at Framatome, CEA and EDF, this phD thesis have the following objectives:
- implement an efficient temporal integration algorithm suited for the case of systems with contact and friction, in particular to accurately reproduce “stick-and-slip” regimes and then the wear power of the surfaces in contact.
- demonstrate the ability to simulate both a single tube and a bundle of nearly 5000 interacting tubes,
- study the applicability of fluid-elastic coupling models identified on a single straight tube to a bundle of multi-supported 3D tubes,
- identify the relative influence of physical and numerical parameters by probabilistic approaches.

A Master 2 internship is planned before the phD as an introduction to this work.
Profile required: Final year engineer or Master 2 equivalent. Specialized in mechanics, attracted by numerical methods (both computer development and practical use).