Open day 2018: Saturday 13 October on campus!

The 2018 Fête de la Science will run nationally from 6 to 14 October 2018. The aim is to give a taste for science and to raise public awareness of the main scientific issues through activities, visits, conferences or scientific pathways. This year's national theme is generally accepted ideas.

New for this 2018 edition: a national committee of 17 ambassadors has been formed, one of whom is Centrale Nantes lecturer, Florent Laroche, who is representing the Pays de la Loire region.

PROGRAMME:

2.30 PM: ROUND TABLE FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS about the engineering programme (diplôme d’ingénieur):

• Meet teaching staff and students
• Presentation of the curriculum and the pedagogical approach
• Presentation of campus life, clubs and associations

Find out all about: the Centrale Nantes engineering programme “diplôme d’ingénieur”; degree apprenticeships across 1 or 3 years, gap year; the double degrees in Engineering and Management, Engineering and Architecture, Engineering and Management, Engineering and Naval Studies; double degrees abroad, international mobility; mobility within the Ecoles Centrale Group - Lille, Lyon, Marseille or Paris; the 21 second and third year specialisations and the 3rd year professional options; research degrees.

2 PM > 6 PM RESEARCH PLATFORMS VISITS / DEMONSTRATIONS

SUPERCOMPUTER: LIGER is a Tier2 BULLx DLC parallel scalar supercomputer currently with 6384 cores on 266 nodes, soon be extended to 10000 cores to achieve a theoretical computing power close to 0.5 PFlops (as if the entire world’s population was simultaneously calculating more than 65, 000 arithmetic operations with decimal numbers in one second!) Today, calculations that take 24 hours to perform on a conventional PC would only take about ten seconds on this supercomputer. Its applications: marine renewable energies (simulation of offshore wind turbines), direct simulation based on 3D imagery for healthcare (direct calculation on MRI geometries) and materials (calculation on X-ray tomography), development of a simulation tool to optimize processes for composite materials, etc.

COMPUTER-INTEGRATED MANUFACTURING: from product design to industrialization: presentation of the integrated development of products and processes (CAD / CAM software) and machining on multi-axis CNC machine tools, three-dimensional measurement with and without contact, form digitisation and rapid prototyping parts display. Robot-guided machining.

DYNAMIC AND STATIC TEST CENTRE: test facilities for the dynamic characterization of materials, on impact and in crashes (cannons, crossbow, drop shaft etc). Permanent demonstrations, thermal and high-speed video cameras.

ROBOTICS PLATFORM: Parallel robots: 3 and 5 axis Orthoglide platforms, IRSBot fast robot, low environmental impact robot, Dextar robot designer. Drones. Intelligent vehicles: demonstration in an urban environment.  Driving simulator. Video presentation of an electric actuator and electro-pneumatic actuator.

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE: Centrale Nantes has developed an autonomous vehicle from a Renault ZOE, which has been fully automated by the LS2N team. It is equipped with a multi-line laser for mapping / location and cameras for signal and obstacle detection. Today the car can make a trip around campus in total autonomy; control of the vehicle can be retaken at any time thanks to the shared control mode.



RAPID MANUFACTURING PLATFORM: Additive manufacturing by laser fusion - robotic welding. The platform brings together several different manufacturing processes: additive manufacturing, machining, forming, welding, bioprinting.

HYDRODYNAMIC AND OCEAN ENGINEERING TANK: at 50 m long, 30 m wide and 5 m deep, with a central shaft 10 m deep, this is the largest tank in France for this kind of testing. Its wave generator makes it possible to reproduce the strong swells encountered across the world’s oceans. It is equipped with a wind generator simulating the extreme conditions to which marine structures (ships, oil rigs, floating wind turbines, etc.) are subjected.

TOWING TANK: 148 m long, 5 m wide and 3 m deep. Equipped with its towing carriage it can test the performance of ship hulls. It is an essential testing facility for design and innovation in the naval field.

FARWIND PROJECT: Catamaran prototype for the production of renewable fuel from offshore wind energy.

VIRTUAL REALITY PLATFORM: "Virtual reality for all" - shared teaching/research platform: how to immerse yourself in a digital world? Digitize in 3D, visualize and simulate virtual environments, touch objects that only exist in a "parallel" world.

STRUCTURES AND SIMULATIONS - 3D room: Projection of a 3D film.

ENGINE TEST BENCHES: Test of automotive propulsion engines: HIL drive cycle, behaviour of a supercharged engine.

PLAY A RESEARCH GAME
Replicating an RNA molecule (the companion of DNA) is not an easy task! And yet, understanding how it works is essential for research in biology and medicine. Come and have fun manipulating this molecule to discover its secrets.

OBSERVATION AND MODELLING OF URBAN ENVIRONMENTS
Air, water and soil pollution, flooding, heat islands, noise, failing building insulation are all major nuisances plaguing our cities and affecting people's well-being and health. To help make cities more liveable and sustainable, sensor networks are installed on the surface, on buildings and in the ground. Measurements are carried out contributing to spatialised diagnoses and to describe the long term evolution of nuisances. The modelling of urban systems is thus now an indispensable planning tool for sustainable urban development.

2 PM > 6 PM: STUDENT PROJECTS

Centrale Nantes HYDROproject: three podium finishes for the Centrale Nantes ENSA team in Hydrocontest 2018, an international student competition focusing on the energy efficiency of ships. The team sailed off with the design award for the light boat as well as the Energy Observer award for the heavy boat.


The model of the light boat produced in the Fablab by a team of Centrale Nantes students will be on display. Come and meet them and find out about their next challenge! > See updates on Hydroproject.

Centrale Vert: discover their permaculture vegetable garden! > Find out more

Industrial Study Project - planning of energy work: a group of students explains their work in collaboration with Orvault town hall. The goal? Propose a computer tool to help the town better plan their energy work. Result? This tool now helps the mayor in his decisions.

• In the meantime, more about the National Science Fair here: fetedelascience.fr