RockDefTUD
We are the Rock Mechanics lab at TU Delft. We will post about the rocks we break and the resulting science. By Anne Pluymakers and Auke Barnhoorn
- An important read. You usually don't know what is going on in the lives of your colleagues, but in the recent geopolitical turmoil, nationality gives an idea about someone's state of mind
- Anyone around #Delft interested in how materials repair themselves? We are hosting a symposium to explore a range of self healing materials, from rocks to metals, asphalt and polymer! @tudelftceg.bsky.social @tudelfttnw.bsky.social when? 27 Feb, at TU Delft, for free!
- Thoroughly enjoying the Euroconference on Rock Physics and Rock Mechanics organized by the Strasbourg and EPFL team..and it turns into an awesome reunion with Debanjan Chandra and Kai Li! Awesome science so far and a great landscape for recuperating hikes in the lunch break
- A rare view here in Delft! Lots of snow these days, whilst 2026 is slowly firing up. We wish you all a smashing year! May it rock 🪨😁
- Christmas came early this year ! A new saw for the more fragile rocks 😍😁
- Reposted by RockDefTUDMore than seven thousand students, lecturers and researchers gathered in Amsterdam on Tuesday to demonstrate against the budget cuts on higher education. ‘Don't forget us,’ say representatives to the parties forming the new government. ‘Not everything is about immigration, defence or housing.’
- So what can you do when shooting with neutrons at rocks, look at this cool publication by the Norwegian team at NJORD! Mixing and precipitation can be shown in real time agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
- Well done Milady! Another one of Milads PhD papers has been published. Curious how fluid pressure affects fault slip in permeable sandstone? Check it out here dx.doi.org/10.1029/2024...
- *MilaD...
- Merry Sinterklaas! Our end-of-year lunch came early this year 🥰
- Reposted by RockDefTUDAre you an #AssistantProfessor in the #Netherlands? Join APNet today to become part of our amazing network. If you become a member between now and the end of the year, you can make use of our end-of-year promotion and become member for 20 € until the end of 2026. ap-net.nl/register/
- Going home. Thanks for all the inspiring science @epostcsah.bsky.social and @rocklabstrasbourg.bsky.social 🤓 #breaking rocks #rocks!
- On my way to Strasbourg, to visit @rocklabstrasbourg.bsky.social and to connect with the @epostcsah.bsky.social community. I got to admit, traveling per train beats the plane by a mile! Better views, better seats, better WiFi. Now if there wouldn't be any strikes on the way... It would be perfect
- Excited to be back at PSI with the crew from Njord to shoot with neutrons and X-rays at rocks to investigate flow and precipitation in basalts
- Anne Pluymakers got a #Vidi grant from Dutch #NWO to investigate why different fluids make limestone break in a different way, and to see if we improve our acoustic and electromagnetic monitoring for #geothermal energy and #ccs... And so our team grows (a bit) 😁🤓 www.tudelft.nl/en/2025/citg...
- *Krak!* In case you think salt always flows.....in Jops PhD project it is all about breaking salt. And it does so quite nicely, if you push it enough!
- Shihao is on a roll! Last week he presented in Beijing, today in Cyprus... And in between he submitted the final draft of his PhD thesis to the Graduate School! 😎🤓😁😁😁
- PhD candidate Jop is crushing it! Trying out how mechanically homogeneous and repeatable the homemade salt rocks are 😁
- Sometimes you mechano-chemically torture rocks and not much happens... But still good to know! Check out our new publication to see that 6 months exposure to H2 did not change the mechanics of these sandstones... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Check out our new publication, by Debanjan Chandra, Lujain Alghannam and Auke Barnhoorn, on how sonic velocity can be incorporated into a traffic light system in subsurface storage systems www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Check out our new publication, by Debanjan Chandra, Lujain Alghannam and Auke Barnhoorn, on how sonic velocity can be incorporated into a traffic light system in subsurface storage systems www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Check out this new publication on how fluid density changes the ultrasonic response to stress changes, by Debanjan Chandra and Auke Barnhoorn www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Publications can be stuck in peer review for ever... And then all of a sudden there are three from the lab!
- Disco-salt! This is a very salty day, meeting with PhD Jop on his salt project but also sitting in a national salt meeting talking about what's happening in salt. This salt block is standing in our lab post-lab-torture 😁 happy Friday all!
- For those at the European #geothermal congress: go see @entelakane.bsky.social , in session 6F: Rock mechanics and petrophysics, Gartensaal 1A
- 3 months of failed attempts but finally some progress on pressing our own salt samples from NaCl powder #teamSalt not yet perfect but at least it doesn't crumble...
- Our former postdoc Kai Li started his new job at KIT Karlsruhe already in January, but nonetheless he has been diligently working on publishing his postdoc "Effects of confined thermal cycling on sealants with different thermomechanical properties for #CCS" www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- It's basalt time! Working on a few samples for Njord Oslo, who invited Anne to join their trip to PSI in November to shoot neutrons at rocks again
- Team Salt on the move! Brazilian disc testing with camera plus acoustics on healed samples fractured last spring 🤓😁
- Tonight our team caught the last rays of the summer sun in the pretty area of Meijendel, near the beach 🥰
- Former PD Debanjan Chandra is visiting from Norway to run experiments with an #EPOS-NL grant and he is explaining his new experiments whilst monitoring his stuff. Multi-tasking at its finest!
- A first attempt at cold pressing our own salt samples, which will be baked afterwards for Jops PhD project. If anyone has any tips, we gladly take them!
- Want to come break rocks with us? Or scan some of your pretty samples? Apply for #EPOS funding! epos-nl.nl/facilities/
- Even more proud as a supervisor: he won the best presentation prize ❤️🤓💪💪💪
- *he=Milad Naderloo, in case the algorithm only showed the second post 😅
- Proud of our postdoc Milad Naderloo, presenting his work on sandstone-H2 interaction at the #hydrogenstorage summer school!
- @entelakane.bsky.social branching out from geothermal energy to H2 storage ❤️🤓
- Presenting my work on geomechanics of Rock fluid interaction at DTU Offshore - Danish Offshore Technology Centre for the 4th International Summer School 2025 on Underground Hydrogen Storage. @rockdeftud.bsky.social
- The last batch of experiments for @entelakane.bsky.social will take place in Utrecht at TNO, thanks to #EPOSNL funding 🤓
- Question to those rock crushing people out there: how long do you keep your post-experimental samples after a project finished? Here we are contemplating 2-5 years post-publication.... Though the thought of tossing those beauties away pains us :( we are seriously struggling for space!
- Almost back home after looking at broken rocks with our 2nd year BSc students in France. Also for lab rats it's energizing to see faults in their natural habitat!
- Reposted by RockDefTUDAt this year's #EAGEAnnual2025 my colleague Anne gave a truly passionate and compassionate pitch why #geoscience #education needs to become more inclusive and diverse if we are serious about inspiring new talents to enter this field and work on the #energytransition @rockdeftud.bsky.social ⚒️💡🔋
- It's a bit quiet on here, since Anne is in the field with our 2nd year students :) now in the train to EAGE for a panel discussion about education in geosciences in these times of energy transition...
- More BSc thesis time! Jesse worked today with BSc Iris to scan the heterogeneous Rotliegend cores .. always good to scan before breaking! #breakingrocks #rocks
- We made use of the spring weather to do a lab&friends BBQ at Anne's place, including our wonderful BSc and MSc students... Always good to have good food and good company!
- Not a basket full of cookies but a small box of different types of saw cut Dinantian samples. If I were a grandmother, it'd be totally my kind of gift!
- PhD Jesse came by in the afternoon and made my day with these freshly cored heterogeneous #Rotliegend #sandstone samples for #CrossScale w/ @geoenergyprof.bsky.social Aren't they pretty? Next: cutting them (and deciding where...), CT scan, porosimetry and then... Break them! 😎😎 #breakingrocks #rocks
- Interested in #CCS? Our colleagues Denis Voskov and Rouhi Farajzadeh are organising the 11th edition of the CCUS summer school 30 June to 4 July. Subscriptions until 15 May www.tudelft.nl/citg/over-fa...
- Meanwhile in Delft the thesis season is in full swing... Sybrand is now nicely into obtaining his Brazilian disc dataset on salt samples for his BSc thesis with Jop and Shihao
- Today it was former PD Debanjan Chandra who took the stage, to talk about using sonic velocities to monitor CO2 plume migration #CCS #breakingrocks #rocks
- Proud of the current and former team 🤓🤘💪
