Georges Friedel Laboratory

 

The Georges Friedel Laboratory - LGF (CNRS UMR 5307) is a joint research unit from INSIS-CNRS and École des Mines de Saint-Étienne, comprising 150 persons, dealing with activities in the fields of Materials Science, Mechanics and Process Engineering.
LGF is an academic research player, in strong partnership with industry, addressing the durability and energy efficiency of components, from grain to material, from material to component and from component to factory.
Research at LGF focuses on materials for application in the main fields of energy, transportation, chemistry. Competences are material science, physico-chemistry of solids (divided and massive), mechanics and chemical engineering.
Scientists at LGF develop multiscale models from nano to macroscale, technological solutions for enriching knowledge and design of materials and processes with regard to their functional properties.

 

LGF participates in numerous federative structures or research groups:

 

 

Three of the four LGF's research groups are involved in Manutech-SLEIGHT Graduate School.
 

The PMM group works on microstructural evolutions and thermomechanical processing from alloy design to in-service mechanical properties. They develop cutting-edge characterization methods to measure process signatures in terms of microstructure, texture, dislocation density, mechanical properties, damage or residual stresses. In parallel, the PMM group is involved in the development of mean/full field models in the framework of computational mechanics and metallurgy. Recent advances in alloy design and elaboration places the PMM group as one of the main actor in the field of High Entropy Alloys. The PMM group contributes to the Manutech-SLEIGHT Graduate School through the development of a specific knowledge about the metallurgy/mechanical/microstructure consequences induced by laser processing (laser beam melting, laser peening, laser surface texturing).

 

The PDMM team works on physico-chemistry and dynamics of granular and particulate solids: image analysis, morphological characterizations and spatio-temporal models. These researches are applied to additive manufacturing (powder rheology), simulation of functional properties of solids in regards of morphology. PDMM's contribution to the Graduate School is mainly through the second research axis “Extract full information and meaning from surface imaging” with the objective to extract quantitative geometrical and morphometrical information, from correlative multi-mode image analysis techniques (photonic, electronic and RX), of tribologic surfaces in order to correlate them to tribologic measurements.
 

The activities of the SURF group focus on Surface Reactivity on one hand, and Surface Functionalisation on the other hand. The Reactivity aspects include corrosion of materials in aqueous solutions, gas-solid surface reactions, high temperature corrosion and hydrogen embrittlement of materials, while the Functionalisation part of the group deals with surface processing to obtain particular sensory properties (visual and/or tactile) and to develop various sensors. On top of that, the SURF group has a unique expertise in the development of new AFM- and XPS-based methods, as well as optical methods, for surface analysis.