Floating Forest – a breakwater for protecting the Australian coastline. This project aims to develop structural, materials and foundation solutions for a large floating forest that will act as a mega breakwater and windbreaker to protect the Australian coastline from strong waves and winds caused by climate change. This requires the evaluation of structural and environmental loads, concepts and optimal structural solutions, design, materials and foundation. The newly developed floating structure ....Floating Forest – a breakwater for protecting the Australian coastline. This project aims to develop structural, materials and foundation solutions for a large floating forest that will act as a mega breakwater and windbreaker to protect the Australian coastline from strong waves and winds caused by climate change. This requires the evaluation of structural and environmental loads, concepts and optimal structural solutions, design, materials and foundation. The newly developed floating structure will lead to future construction applications on the Australian harsh sea conditions that call for stringent requirements on infrastructures.Read moreRead less
Mitigating the Severity of Level Crossing Accidents and Derailments. Ongoing increases in the number of level crossings and heavy road vehicles cause more frequent and severe level crossing accidents and derailments. Despite the use of active warning systems, each year, on average, 100 level crossing accidents occur in Australia. With a view to mitigating these crashes, this research aims to formulate theories for reduction in crash energy and effective wheel constraints to prevent derailment by ....Mitigating the Severity of Level Crossing Accidents and Derailments. Ongoing increases in the number of level crossings and heavy road vehicles cause more frequent and severe level crossing accidents and derailments. Despite the use of active warning systems, each year, on average, 100 level crossing accidents occur in Australia. With a view to mitigating these crashes, this research aims to formulate theories for reduction in crash energy and effective wheel constraints to prevent derailment by modifying the levels of road and rail crossings and providing guard rails in the recesses of these modified level crossings. The theories are intended be developed using nonlinear dynamic computational methods and laboratory experiments. The outcomes are expected to enable reduction in the severity of level crossing accidents and hence save lives and costs of derailment.Read moreRead less
Development of Intelligent Structures that can Self-evaluate Deterioration. This project aims to transform traditional civil structures into smart structures that can accurately identify current and future structural deterioration conditions and automatically notify the infrastructure management authority for timely maintenance. Civil structures deteriorate over their long life spans. Currently, we have no effective method to identify when deterioration has reached the point where maintenance is ....Development of Intelligent Structures that can Self-evaluate Deterioration. This project aims to transform traditional civil structures into smart structures that can accurately identify current and future structural deterioration conditions and automatically notify the infrastructure management authority for timely maintenance. Civil structures deteriorate over their long life spans. Currently, we have no effective method to identify when deterioration has reached the point where maintenance is required. The project plans to develop innovative structural deterioration evaluation systems using output-only vibration data and versatile optimisation algorithms to enable long-term deterioration assessment and maintenance management even under demanding operating conditions. These could be used with both conventional data acquisition systems and modern monitoring systems with smart wireless sensors. Expected project outcomes will enhance structural safety and maintenance efficiency.Read moreRead less
Thermal Upheaval Buckling of Functionally Graded Pavement Slabs. Upheaval buckling or blowup of concrete pavements due to high environment temperature is a serious problem in transportation infrastructure which quite often leads to road failure or even traffic hazards. The proposed project presents a combined theoretical, numerical and experimental investigation on the effective enhancement of thermal buckling capacity of pavement slabs with or without initial imperfection by using light and gre ....Thermal Upheaval Buckling of Functionally Graded Pavement Slabs. Upheaval buckling or blowup of concrete pavements due to high environment temperature is a serious problem in transportation infrastructure which quite often leads to road failure or even traffic hazards. The proposed project presents a combined theoretical, numerical and experimental investigation on the effective enhancement of thermal buckling capacity of pavement slabs with or without initial imperfection by using light and green functionally graded concrete materials with reduced usage of plain Portland cements for less carbon dioxide emissions. The research outcomes will contribute significantly to the society by offering a novel environmental friendly pavement solution with greatly improved road safety.Read moreRead less
Early-age cracking in concrete structures: mechanisms and control. This project aims to generate a comprehensive set of reliable data to examine all key factors governing the risk of early-age cracking in concrete structures, including a novel concept concerning zero-stress temperature. Expected outcomes include improved models for fundamental concrete properties from very early ages and tensile stresses due to restrained deformation accumulated from early stage, as well as guidelines for effect ....Early-age cracking in concrete structures: mechanisms and control. This project aims to generate a comprehensive set of reliable data to examine all key factors governing the risk of early-age cracking in concrete structures, including a novel concept concerning zero-stress temperature. Expected outcomes include improved models for fundamental concrete properties from very early ages and tensile stresses due to restrained deformation accumulated from early stage, as well as guidelines for effective crack control in concrete structures. It is expected these guidelines will enable significant cost savings and a more sustainable construction industry.Read moreRead less
Microbiological and abiotic marine corrosion of steel in particulate media. This project aims to study the complex interfacial physicochemical interaction between structural steel and inert particles in marine environments, including microbial growth influences. It will use field-testing and electrochemical laboratory experiments to understand the short- and long-term corrosion processes. It will develop mathematical models to predict likely corrosion loss and pitting, based on physicochemical c ....Microbiological and abiotic marine corrosion of steel in particulate media. This project aims to study the complex interfacial physicochemical interaction between structural steel and inert particles in marine environments, including microbial growth influences. It will use field-testing and electrochemical laboratory experiments to understand the short- and long-term corrosion processes. It will develop mathematical models to predict likely corrosion loss and pitting, based on physicochemical corrosion principles. Industry increasingly needs such models to manage major infrastructure not protected against corrosion, including offshore energy systems, coastal structures and buried pipelines. These outcomes are expected to benefit Australian engineering consultants in the offshore energy industry, with potential for large foreign exchange earnings.Read moreRead less
Coupled effects of stress and temperature changes on concrete structures. The coupled effects of stress and temperature changes that concrete structures are commonly subject to are significant and need to be properly accounted for. However, existing engineering models accounting for these effects remain essentially empirical, necessarily limiting their predictive capability. This research aims to examine such coupled effects using an innovative approach combining original physical-based analytic ....Coupled effects of stress and temperature changes on concrete structures. The coupled effects of stress and temperature changes that concrete structures are commonly subject to are significant and need to be properly accounted for. However, existing engineering models accounting for these effects remain essentially empirical, necessarily limiting their predictive capability. This research aims to examine such coupled effects using an innovative approach combining original physical-based analytical study with novel tests and advanced numerical work. Expected outcomes include a robust yet simple engineering model, and guidelines for rational design of structures (incl. concrete spalling in fire) with due account for such coupled effects, thereby enabling to achieve more robust structures at substantial cost saving.Read moreRead less
Practical multi-receiver passive radar with low-cost synchronisation. This project aims to address the current challenges of developing practical multi-receiver passive radar systems, through the development of advanced receiver synchronisation techniques, which do not require the deployment of costly infrastructure. The project will develop novel algorithms and techniques that enable synchronous combining of data from multiple radars, allowing for the detection of smaller targets and significan ....Practical multi-receiver passive radar with low-cost synchronisation. This project aims to address the current challenges of developing practical multi-receiver passive radar systems, through the development of advanced receiver synchronisation techniques, which do not require the deployment of costly infrastructure. The project will develop novel algorithms and techniques that enable synchronous combining of data from multiple radars, allowing for the detection of smaller targets and significantly extending the radar coverage zone. The expected outcomes of this project include improved performance of passive radar systems and the advancement of radar technology. The benefits of this project include new applications in areas such as traffic monitoring, drone detection and national security.Read moreRead less
Sustainable retirement villages for Ageing Australians. This project aims to deliver sustainable retirement villages to better accommodate older Australians and assess their effects on the growth of the retirement village industry. More organisations and governments globally are embracing sustainable development, but the Australian retirement village industry has been largely static and unresponsive; it has not yet met the green movement’s challenge to provide a sustainable living environment fo ....Sustainable retirement villages for Ageing Australians. This project aims to deliver sustainable retirement villages to better accommodate older Australians and assess their effects on the growth of the retirement village industry. More organisations and governments globally are embracing sustainable development, but the Australian retirement village industry has been largely static and unresponsive; it has not yet met the green movement’s challenge to provide a sustainable living environment for senior citizens. This project is expected to improve the living environment of retirement villages and the quality of life of older Australians.Read moreRead less
Design and Construction Error Mitigation in Infrastructure Projects. Human errors committed during the design and construction process of infrastructure projects increase costs by as much as 25 per cent. The costs associated with such errors would be significantly higher in the event of an engineering failure and loss of life. This research will develop a model that can be used to mitigate errors and improve the performance and safety of infrastructure projects. A reduction in errors will reduce ....Design and Construction Error Mitigation in Infrastructure Projects. Human errors committed during the design and construction process of infrastructure projects increase costs by as much as 25 per cent. The costs associated with such errors would be significantly higher in the event of an engineering failure and loss of life. This research will develop a model that can be used to mitigate errors and improve the performance and safety of infrastructure projects. A reduction in errors will reduce the financial burden placed on taxpayers for cost overruns experienced as well as improve the profitability of organisations. This will lead to greater investment, and contribution to gross domestic product.Read moreRead less