LCPC - Presentation - Sites - Nantes-Bouguenais

Nantes-Bouguenais: A desire to decentralize - and the need to find space for facilities

In the mid-1970s, the LCPC started to be short of space for the largest of its "large test facilities" which it needs for its research activities.

So, in 1975, the Laboratory set up a centre on 150 hectares of land in the Commune of Bouguenais near Nantes. This was large enough for the Pavement Fatigue Carrousel , the Reference and Road Experiment Track, the Pavement Materials Mixing Test Facility, the Geotechnical Centrifuge and many other outstanding facilities:

• the Cable Fatigue Testing Bench,
• the Vibration Bench,
• the Geophysical Test Site,
• the Climatic Chamber,
• the Pavement Materials Laboratory
• the Test facility for Research and Study of Positioning Systems (SESSYL)
• the Partial Reverberation Room (PRR)

In the 1980s the advent of the TGV Atlantique between Nantes and Paris eased links and contacts between the two main sites.

Nantes has 8 research laboratories (several of which are split between Paris and Nantes) and 250 staff are employed at this site where a meal in the canteen is automatically followed by a short stroll - or sometimes even a long walk - in the countryside. The site needed to be 150 hectares, but it’s very big!

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Nantes (Loire-Atlantique)
Nantes site of the LCPC, Route de Bouaye
CS4
44341 Bouguenais cedex
Tél: +33 02 40 84 58 00 - Fax: +33 02 40 84 59 99





Public transport:
From Nantes Railways Station
1 - tramway line 1 direction F. Mitterrand and change at the "Commerce" station
2 - tramway line 3 direction Neustrie and change at the "Neustrie" station
3 - bus line N°88 towards "Lycée de Bouaye" and leave the bus at the bus-stop "La Forêt"
(the entrance of the Laboratory is 200m behind the bus-stop) (see www.tan.fr for map and schedule)