Jean Salençon

Jean Salençon's research work concerns the mechanics of continuous media, the calculation of structures and civil engineering structures, and the irreversible behaviour of solid materials for industrial applications.

He was particularly interested in the irreversible behaviour of materials (plasticity, viscoelasticity and their industrial applications. He is the author of the theory of computation at break which he implemented for the first global computation of the bearing capacity of surface foundations on homogeneous or heterogeneous isotropic soils or anisotropic soils and also for stability analyses of earth and reinforced soil structures. In the case of foundations or structures subjected to seismic loads, the method is used for "pseudo-static" analyses. He also developed this theory in the probabilistic framework both from the point of view of material strength and stress and showed that it is the theoretical basis for ultimate limit state design (ULSD), which is incorporated in some current design regulations.