This proposal focuses on the first thematic axis: complex systems modeling, and closely respond to the modeling of environmental sciences thematic of the call for proposal, specifically oceanography. The ocean, coupled with other components (atmosphere, continent, and ice) is a building block of the earth system. Recent events have raised questions on social and economic implications of anthropic alterations of the earth system, i.e. both its long-term evolution and extreme events. A better understanding of the ocean system is a key ingredient for improving our prediction of such implications. Ocean models are essential tools to understand key processes, simulate and forecast events of various space and time scales. The whole French ocean modeling community has been recently assembled under the group name COMODO (COmmunauté de Modélisation Océanique). This community is diverse and offers a variety of applications and numerical approaches for ocean modeling; it also relies at various degrees on the international community. For the first time, this proposal reflects a global effort of the French community to strengthen interactions between its members. This common effort will be directed towars two main objectives: improvement of existing models and numerical methods, guidelines for the development of future generation ocean models. Existing ocean models suffers from a number of well-identified issues that will be addressed during this project. To improve on those issues, the present proposal suggests an innovative evaluation of dissipation mechanisms especially in the context of submesoscale modelling and an improvement of advection-diffusion schemes for the reduction of spurious diapycnal mixing for the accurate representation of active and passive tracers. The second part of the proposal is based on recent advances of our community on vertical coordinate systems, unstructured meshes and non-hydrostatic modelling. The objective is here both to continue fundamental research in these topics and to contribute to the design of future generation models involving their system of equations and numerical methods. The proposed developments will be evaluated thanks to a benchmark suite that covers both idealized test cases design to assess basic important properties of numerical schemes and more complex test cases that will be set-up for a thorough evaluation of progresses made during this project. This benchmark suite, accompanied with the results of the different models, will be made publicly available so as to provide elements for future model developments as well as an opportunity for more theoretical work on numerical schemes to be evaluated in the context of ocean modeling.

The project 'Impulsé' unites seven national partners, 3 industrials and 4 universities covering different regions of France, in a theoretical and experimental development for the advancement of the technology using Pulse Electric Field sintering and/or association for materials fabrications. This technique, known as 'Frittage Flash' in France or as Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) internationally, has successfully been in operation at five French sites; two of them (PNF2/CNRS and Schneider Electric Industries) are involved in this project. Due to the power and success of the technique, it has witness a spectacular increase in demand all over the world. Although it is very well adapted for material preparations, there remain still many questions to be answered concerning the kinetics, mechanisms and optimization of conditions as well as aiming for singular products. One integral part of the project is to develop theoretical tools to unravel the missing information. A parallel experimental part will be undertaken to ensure the unification of the theoretical approach. Several materials of industrial use, as well as for domestic and research, will be studied with the aim of producing exact conditions for the optimization of the fabrication technique. The project aims at primarily developing high-yield, cost-effective and energy-conserving methods to provide our industries with the desired materials. For this purpose, developing the theoretical understandings of the processes (mechanism, kinetics, and optimization) should enhance our knowledge of this black-box technological tool. As such each participant, an expert in his own field, will contribute collectively and together we look forward to complement each other with one aim in mind - to bring a full comprehension of the SPS technique from laboratory level to industrial level. The project will be effected, through collaboration, at both the governmental and industrial sites using two of the oldest operating SPS sites in France.