Christelle's recent work involves the development of improved and robust guidelines for the design of monopile foundations for offshore wind applications, addressing both ultimate limit state and the response to long-term cyclic loading. Her research projects were conducted in close collaboration with offshore wind industries, such as EDF and Orsted.
Christelle's research has been largely involved with capturing permanent deformations caused by repeated cyclic loads applied to a mechanical system. This phenomenon is called ratcheting, and - in the case of offshore wind foundations - can be induced by repeated wave and wind loads on the offshore wind mast. Christelle's work involved the development and calibration of a constitutive model - HARM (Hyperplastic Accelerated Ratcheting Model) - that captures this behaviour in a simple yet rigorous way.
Christelle took part in the PISA2 project. PISA2 is a Joint Industry Project run through the Carbon Trust and follow-up from Fleming award winning PISA project (2013 - 2016). PISA2 aimed at expanding the PISA design method to new soil types, including layered soil profiles.