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
Rare Event Simulation: Protecting vital infrastructure from flood extremes. This research aims to develop Rare Event Simulation to quantify the future risk of very rare to extreme floods. Expected outcomes include a framework for the design and maintenance of critical Civil Engineering infrastructure such as dams, extrapolation of extreme storm events beyond the observed record, and an assessment of change in rare flood risk across Australia. The significance of this world-first research lies in ....Rare Event Simulation: Protecting vital infrastructure from flood extremes. This research aims to develop Rare Event Simulation to quantify the future risk of very rare to extreme floods. Expected outcomes include a framework for the design and maintenance of critical Civil Engineering infrastructure such as dams, extrapolation of extreme storm events beyond the observed record, and an assessment of change in rare flood risk across Australia. The significance of this world-first research lies in adapting rare event simulation techniques that have only been applied to computer system failure before, to water engineering design. With Australian riverine flooding projected to cause $170 billion in losses by 2050, the benefit of this proposal in reducing future infrastructure damage costs and liability is overwhelming.Read moreRead less
Multifunctional and environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitor systems. This project aims to design new, environmentally friendly coating systems for steel in marine environments by incorporating novel, non-toxic pigments that can be combined to protect against both corrosion and microbial attack. Structural requirements for these compounds will be determined through the use of advanced characterisation techniques to identify the largely unknown mechanisms of attachment and protection on steel ....Multifunctional and environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitor systems. This project aims to design new, environmentally friendly coating systems for steel in marine environments by incorporating novel, non-toxic pigments that can be combined to protect against both corrosion and microbial attack. Structural requirements for these compounds will be determined through the use of advanced characterisation techniques to identify the largely unknown mechanisms of attachment and protection on steel surfaces. The components may themselves be dual active, or be combined to capitalise on individual protection mechanisms that provide a synergy whereby the combination leads to better protection outcomes. Such coatings have the potential to significantly improve the lifetime of marine infrastructure.Read moreRead less
Smart transformation of transport asset management through semantic web. This project aims to develop a novel asset management information model to improve the overall effectiveness of decision making in transport asset management. The project intends to provide logical formalisms and semantic features to value-adding asset information in key asset management areas. The expected outcome will be a new value-based asset management information model which provides semantically enriched asset inform ....Smart transformation of transport asset management through semantic web. This project aims to develop a novel asset management information model to improve the overall effectiveness of decision making in transport asset management. The project intends to provide logical formalisms and semantic features to value-adding asset information in key asset management areas. The expected outcome will be a new value-based asset management information model which provides semantically enriched asset information for decision-making concerning transport asset management. This will help reduce the cost, duration and effort required to acquire relevant asset information and improve the quality and data availability of current transport asset management systems.Read moreRead less
Containment and Reduction of Rework in Transport Mega Projects. Mega transport projects (>$1 billion) are poorly managed during their construction with significant cost and schedule overruns and benefit shortfalls regularly being experienced. Having to perform rework has been identified as a major factor that contributes to these unintended consequences. As there has been limited research that has empirically examined rework causation, an inability to develop effective rework containment and red ....Containment and Reduction of Rework in Transport Mega Projects. Mega transport projects (>$1 billion) are poorly managed during their construction with significant cost and schedule overruns and benefit shortfalls regularly being experienced. Having to perform rework has been identified as a major factor that contributes to these unintended consequences. As there has been limited research that has empirically examined rework causation, an inability to develop effective rework containment and reduction strategies prevails. This research aims to develop a theoretical model that can be used to develop robust containment and reduction strategies to mitigate the adverse economic, productivity and safety consequences that materialize from performing rework during the construction of mega transport projects.Read moreRead less
Future Proofing Transportation Infrastructure Assets. This project seeks to develop a model to predict construction project overruns. Transportation infrastructure assets are prone to cost and schedule overruns during their construction, which have negative impacts on asset owners and users. This project aims to develop a systemic model that can be used to determine the causal nature of cost and schedule overruns and their probability of occurrence. By enabling the predication of overruns, the p ....Future Proofing Transportation Infrastructure Assets. This project seeks to develop a model to predict construction project overruns. Transportation infrastructure assets are prone to cost and schedule overruns during their construction, which have negative impacts on asset owners and users. This project aims to develop a systemic model that can be used to determine the causal nature of cost and schedule overruns and their probability of occurrence. By enabling the predication of overruns, the project aims to ensure that the public and private sector are able to put in place mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of the economic and productivity issues that arise due to overruns.Read moreRead less
Pipeline backfill reimagined to provide in-line corrosion protection. This project aims to innovate new resistive pipeline backfill materials, associated construction methods and numerical techniques to minimise corrosion at network level, considering interference effects among adjacent pipelines. In contrast to only providing mechanical support, this project will envision backfill for in-line corrosion protection by elucidating its role in pipeline corrosion. The expected outcomes are very effe ....Pipeline backfill reimagined to provide in-line corrosion protection. This project aims to innovate new resistive pipeline backfill materials, associated construction methods and numerical techniques to minimise corrosion at network level, considering interference effects among adjacent pipelines. In contrast to only providing mechanical support, this project will envision backfill for in-line corrosion protection by elucidating its role in pipeline corrosion. The expected outcomes are very effective and low-cost approach and tools to provide in-line protection, in contrast to other protection methods that are expensive and not always possible. The project will bring significant economic benefits by addressing corrosion-induced pipe failures for urban centres, where underground space is heavily congested.
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Next-generation smart water network for performance-driven asset management. This project aims to develop smart water network systems and techniques for continuous monitoring and early detection of structural failure in water distribution systems. Water assets are critical infrastructure, and they consist of a network of buried pipes that are old and deteriorating, with an annual maintenance overhead exceeding $1billion per year in Australia. This project is expected to deliver next-generation s ....Next-generation smart water network for performance-driven asset management. This project aims to develop smart water network systems and techniques for continuous monitoring and early detection of structural failure in water distribution systems. Water assets are critical infrastructure, and they consist of a network of buried pipes that are old and deteriorating, with an annual maintenance overhead exceeding $1billion per year in Australia. This project is expected to deliver next-generation smart water technology that enables continuous assessment of the actual performance of water pipe networks, guide “just in time” pipe replacement and optimise operations. This technology will assist asset managers to make informed decisions, strategically prioritise investment and extend asset life.Read moreRead less
Smart Pipe Condition Assessment in Water Distribution Systems. The project aims to develop an urgently needed smart pipe fault diagnosis, characterisation and prognosis system. Analysis techniques will be used for the detailed mapping of buried pipe condition between access points using micro-sized transient pressure waves. Water assets are critical infrastructure and they consist of a network of pipes that are often old and deteriorating. The annual maintenance cost exceeds $1b per year in Aus ....Smart Pipe Condition Assessment in Water Distribution Systems. The project aims to develop an urgently needed smart pipe fault diagnosis, characterisation and prognosis system. Analysis techniques will be used for the detailed mapping of buried pipe condition between access points using micro-sized transient pressure waves. Water assets are critical infrastructure and they consist of a network of pipes that are often old and deteriorating. The annual maintenance cost exceeds $1b per year in Australia. The outcome will be a next-generation tool that allows water utilities to move from reactive emergency repairs to proactive repair and predictive replacement. This will enable performance-driven asset management, extending asset life and replacing deteriorated high-risk pipe sections in a timely manner.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