Bottom-up multiscale modelling of expansive soils in natural environments . Expansive soils, highly sensitive to the environment, undergo dramatic strength and volume changes. This project aims to advance our understanding of expansive soils under different temperatures, hydraulic conditions, mechanical loads, and aqueous salinities. The project expects to use a combination of multidisciplinary knowledge, multiscale experiments and numerical simulations. The outcomes are a new multiscale model a ....Bottom-up multiscale modelling of expansive soils in natural environments . Expansive soils, highly sensitive to the environment, undergo dramatic strength and volume changes. This project aims to advance our understanding of expansive soils under different temperatures, hydraulic conditions, mechanical loads, and aqueous salinities. The project expects to use a combination of multidisciplinary knowledge, multiscale experiments and numerical simulations. The outcomes are a new multiscale model and advanced analysis/design tool for evaluating the performance of expansive soils under different conditions. The outcomes should provide the efficient way to mitigate the significant damage caused to infrastructure by expansive soils and facilitate the application of expansive soil products in waste disposal systems.Read moreRead less
Erosion processes in soils across scales. This project aims to develop a monitoring tool for predicting the evolution of internal erosion in dams based on innovative electromagnetic observation methods. Internal erosion is an insidious process occurring in the obscurity of the soil’s pore system until its consequences become visible and threaten the stability of the dams. These water retaining structures are vital for the future water and energy supply for our society and their failure can be ca ....Erosion processes in soils across scales. This project aims to develop a monitoring tool for predicting the evolution of internal erosion in dams based on innovative electromagnetic observation methods. Internal erosion is an insidious process occurring in the obscurity of the soil’s pore system until its consequences become visible and threaten the stability of the dams. These water retaining structures are vital for the future water and energy supply for our society and their failure can be catastrophic. By establishing an improved understanding of internal erosion as a sequence of processes on various scales, from the onset of erosion until the failure of the structure, this project will place Australia at the forefront of dam safety assessment.Read moreRead less
Multi-hazard resilient hybrid modular structures. This project aims to develop the next generation of multi-hazard resilient modular construction methods for efficient, affordable and sustainable buildings. New demountable modular connections will be developed and the response of hybrid modular buildings to multiple hazards such as wind, earthquake, blast and impact will be investigated through a combination of experimental, numerical, and analytical studies. The project will develop knowledge o ....Multi-hazard resilient hybrid modular structures. This project aims to develop the next generation of multi-hazard resilient modular construction methods for efficient, affordable and sustainable buildings. New demountable modular connections will be developed and the response of hybrid modular buildings to multiple hazards such as wind, earthquake, blast and impact will be investigated through a combination of experimental, numerical, and analytical studies. The project will develop knowledge of the structural behaviour of hybrid modular buildings, and expects to deliver design methods and robust simplified models for building design purposes. This project will advance construction techniques and practices for resilient hybrid modular buildings.Read moreRead less
Preventing mining disasters: reducing the risk of tailings dam failure. This project aims to improve safety of tailings storage facilities (TSFs). Mineral processing produces waste called tailings, being mixtures of water and soil-sized particles. Tailings are stored on sites contained by embankments made from soil or a coarse component of tailings. Sections of the TSFs are partially saturated, have high concentrations of fine particles and physically change with age. Their resistance to earthqu ....Preventing mining disasters: reducing the risk of tailings dam failure. This project aims to improve safety of tailings storage facilities (TSFs). Mineral processing produces waste called tailings, being mixtures of water and soil-sized particles. Tailings are stored on sites contained by embankments made from soil or a coarse component of tailings. Sections of the TSFs are partially saturated, have high concentrations of fine particles and physically change with age. Their resistance to earthquake loading and liquefaction, and strength post-earthquake, arising from these properties are poorly understood and can not be quantified reliably so will be addressed here. Anticipated outcomes will be updated industry guidelines for the design and management of TSFs. Mines will benefit and failures will be prevented.Read moreRead less
Game changing anchoring solution for Australia’s deep water gas development. This Fellowship aims to establish a novel dynamically installed anchor shape for economic and safer mooring of floating gas drilling platforms in Australia’s deep water calcareous seabed. The novel anchor pairing with the advanced floating platforms are expected to allow for unlocking Australia’s 50% gas reserves that are considered to be stranded. This Fellowship expects to extend a sophisticated numerical analysis tec ....Game changing anchoring solution for Australia’s deep water gas development. This Fellowship aims to establish a novel dynamically installed anchor shape for economic and safer mooring of floating gas drilling platforms in Australia’s deep water calcareous seabed. The novel anchor pairing with the advanced floating platforms are expected to allow for unlocking Australia’s 50% gas reserves that are considered to be stranded. This Fellowship expects to extend a sophisticated numerical analysis technique and a soil constitutive model, and use field testing in the Swan River and centrifuge modelling for extensive investigation on the novel anchor shape, leading to calculation methods for assessing the anchor embedment during dynamic installation and capacity under operational monotonic and cyclic loadings.Read moreRead less
Anchoring the next generation of offshore floating infrastructure. This project aims to advance the fundamental scientific understanding of embedded anchor behaviour and to develop engineering solutions to secure the next generation of floating platforms, wind turbines and submerged tunnels. This is significant because limited understanding of anchors under long-term sustained and cyclic loading, and in how wave-chain-anchor systems behave, is hindering confident deployment in deep water and har ....Anchoring the next generation of offshore floating infrastructure. This project aims to advance the fundamental scientific understanding of embedded anchor behaviour and to develop engineering solutions to secure the next generation of floating platforms, wind turbines and submerged tunnels. This is significant because limited understanding of anchors under long-term sustained and cyclic loading, and in how wave-chain-anchor systems behave, is hindering confident deployment in deep water and harsh conditions. This project will address this challenge by combining precise observations from sophisticated physical and numerical experiments into an analysis framework that integrates system response. Outcomes will include numerical software, analytical tools and design charts for engineers to use in design.Read moreRead less
Composite structures: a game changer for modular buildings. Modular construction can tackle Australia's housing affordability crisis on a large scale. This project aims to develop cutting-edge technologies for the next generation of modular buildings by embracing recent breakthroughs in construction materials, computational modelling methods and construction techniques. Expected outcomes include a novel composite modular unit, a smart joining technique, a robust computational framework and desig ....Composite structures: a game changer for modular buildings. Modular construction can tackle Australia's housing affordability crisis on a large scale. This project aims to develop cutting-edge technologies for the next generation of modular buildings by embracing recent breakthroughs in construction materials, computational modelling methods and construction techniques. Expected outcomes include a novel composite modular unit, a smart joining technique, a robust computational framework and design guidelines that enable modular buildings to be built taller, safer, faster and thus cheaper than current practices allow. This project will position Australia at the forefront of modular construction technology, and make the local construction industry more competitive globally.Read moreRead less
Unravelling Corporate Fraud: re-purposing ancient laws for modern times. This project aims to reform the ancient laws of common law and equitable fraud that underpin commercial regulation in Australia. These laws are vital to supporting a fair and efficient economy but have failed to evolve to address the rise of corporate actors. Drawing upon a collaborative network of experts, the project intends to develop models of liability that address and overcome the existing ‘state of mind’ and ‘attribu ....Unravelling Corporate Fraud: re-purposing ancient laws for modern times. This project aims to reform the ancient laws of common law and equitable fraud that underpin commercial regulation in Australia. These laws are vital to supporting a fair and efficient economy but have failed to evolve to address the rise of corporate actors. Drawing upon a collaborative network of experts, the project intends to develop models of liability that address and overcome the existing ‘state of mind’ and ‘attribution’ hurdles to holding corporations liable for fraudulent conduct. The intended outcome is a road map for comprehensive judicial and legislative law reform, which should offer significant legal, economic and social benefits by supporting more just, effective and efficient regulation of corporate fraud.Read moreRead less
Inerter-enhanced metastructure for structural vibration control. Meta-based technique has been proposed for vibration control recently due to its special wave filtering effect. However, the current techniques are difficult to attenuate low-frequency waves, thus not suitable for civil structural vibration control. This project proposes incorporating an inerter-based element into the unit cell of a metastructure. Due to the unique mass amplification characteristic of inerter element, manipulating ....Inerter-enhanced metastructure for structural vibration control. Meta-based technique has been proposed for vibration control recently due to its special wave filtering effect. However, the current techniques are difficult to attenuate low-frequency waves, thus not suitable for civil structural vibration control. This project proposes incorporating an inerter-based element into the unit cell of a metastructure. Due to the unique mass amplification characteristic of inerter element, manipulating low-frequency waves becomes possible. Practical designs are developed and applied to control the adverse vibrations of engineering structures induced by three typical vibration sources. Comprehensive analytical, experimental and numerical studies are carried out to examine the effectiveness of the proposed method.Read moreRead less
Linking microstructural evolutions across the scales of granular failure. This project expects to transform the understanding of granular materials and their behaviour by establishing explicit links between the macroscopic responses of the materials and their evolving microstructural properties. This should lead to revolutionary constitutive models for granular materials that possess true mechanisms of evolving grain-scale structures. The proliferation of these new models should allow developmen ....Linking microstructural evolutions across the scales of granular failure. This project expects to transform the understanding of granular materials and their behaviour by establishing explicit links between the macroscopic responses of the materials and their evolving microstructural properties. This should lead to revolutionary constitutive models for granular materials that possess true mechanisms of evolving grain-scale structures. The proliferation of these new models should allow development of reliable predictive computational tools for the modelling and assessment of field-scale failure involving granular materials, enhancing the capability to assess the integrity and stability of earth structures, and benefitting the Australian economy, environment and public safety.Read moreRead less