Technology and innovation management in high risk situations. The value of Australian bulk commodity exports and container imports is expected to double from $400 billion to $800 billion by 2020, placing considerable pressure on port waters. This project will examine the challenge whereby port operators are both encouraged to take risks to innovate but are constrained by the consequences of risk.
Geotechnical properties and compaction characteristics of granular wastes as potential port reclamation fill. In moving towards sustainable waste management, the Australian mining and steel industry is proactively seeking large scale recycling schemes for coal wash and slag. If the construction potential of these wastes is favourable for reclamation, then the environmental and socio-economic benefits will be substantial due to less quarrying of fresh rock and reduced volume of waste tips on oth ....Geotechnical properties and compaction characteristics of granular wastes as potential port reclamation fill. In moving towards sustainable waste management, the Australian mining and steel industry is proactively seeking large scale recycling schemes for coal wash and slag. If the construction potential of these wastes is favourable for reclamation, then the environmental and socio-economic benefits will be substantial due to less quarrying of fresh rock and reduced volume of waste tips on otherwise usable land. The research outcomes will be published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, raising Australia's scientific profile in granular waste management. The geotechnical community will benefit through the rigorous training of professionals, while industry hosted seminars will promote the dissemination of knowledge gained to practitioners.Read moreRead less
Understanding and predicting sediment distribution and net transport in estuaries and coastal oceans with an emphasis on muddy bottom layers. This project will design and implement a field campaign to observe fluid mud layers in the muddy harbours and develop predictive models to investigate these layers. This research will give new direction to port management by developing adaptive tools to solve water quality and siltation problems in muddy ports and harbours in Australia.
The ship within a ship: new-generation transhipment of bulk ore products. This project will develop one of the most significant advances in decades in the technology of bulk ore transhipment. This will allow Australia's mining export industry, particularly small to medium sized companies in remote locations, to become more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly.
Bridge performance assessment through advanced sensing and modelling. Bridge performance assessment through advanced sensing and modelling. This project aims to create cyber infrastructure to manage and maintain civil infrastructure, specifically bridges. Current sensor data interpretation approaches are not good at assessing the performance of civil infrastructure or evaluating the reserve capacity; in particular, they do not adequately account for high levels of systematic modelling uncertaint ....Bridge performance assessment through advanced sensing and modelling. Bridge performance assessment through advanced sensing and modelling. This project aims to create cyber infrastructure to manage and maintain civil infrastructure, specifically bridges. Current sensor data interpretation approaches are not good at assessing the performance of civil infrastructure or evaluating the reserve capacity; in particular, they do not adequately account for high levels of systematic modelling uncertainties. This project intends to ease the current scientific data interpretation bottleneck. Expected outcomes are better infrastructure management and maintenance planning, fewer redundant interventions, modified infrastructure and improved future design.Read moreRead less
Asset Intelligence: Maximising Operational Effectiveness for Digital Era . The primary aim of this project is to develop an innovative lifecycle semantic–based decision making approach through asset intelligence so as to maximize the operational effectiveness maintenance, repair and rehabilitation planning of infrastructure assets, such as concrete pavement. The research intends to address an important gap by providing logical formalisms and real-time capability to life-cycle asset information t ....Asset Intelligence: Maximising Operational Effectiveness for Digital Era . The primary aim of this project is to develop an innovative lifecycle semantic–based decision making approach through asset intelligence so as to maximize the operational effectiveness maintenance, repair and rehabilitation planning of infrastructure assets, such as concrete pavement. The research intends to address an important gap by providing logical formalisms and real-time capability to life-cycle asset information through computational intelligence. The expected outcome will be an intelligent asset management platform that provides structured and semantically enriched lifecycle asset information for optimised solutions to help reduce the cost, time and effort in asset information storage and retrieval, and decision-making. Read moreRead less
Fatigue Strengthening of Metallic Bridges using Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer System. A large number of metallic structures such as bridges, offshore platforms and large mining equipment are aging. Retrofitting such structures is becoming increasingly important in the 21st century. Using an advanced material, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP), to strengthen metallic structures is very promising. This project aims to develop reliable CFRP strengthening systems for aging metallic bridges. I ....Fatigue Strengthening of Metallic Bridges using Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer System. A large number of metallic structures such as bridges, offshore platforms and large mining equipment are aging. Retrofitting such structures is becoming increasingly important in the 21st century. Using an advanced material, Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP), to strengthen metallic structures is very promising. This project aims to develop reliable CFRP strengthening systems for aging metallic bridges. It aims to make a breakthrough in understanding of the fatigue crack propagation in CFRP-metal composite system under combined loading. It intends also to produce practical guidelines for engineers to strengthen aging metallic bridges.Read moreRead less
Condition-Based Maintenance Optimisation for Queensland’s Railways. Rail maintainers currently use time-based (scheduled) approaches to balance the costs and benefits of inspections and maintenance. Changing to condition-based maintenance has the potential to reduce costs and improve track condition. This project aims to enable this approach for rail by developing: 1) new track degradation prediction techniques combining Big Data and engineering knowledge; 2) new on-board sensing capabilities fo ....Condition-Based Maintenance Optimisation for Queensland’s Railways. Rail maintainers currently use time-based (scheduled) approaches to balance the costs and benefits of inspections and maintenance. Changing to condition-based maintenance has the potential to reduce costs and improve track condition. This project aims to enable this approach for rail by developing: 1) new track degradation prediction techniques combining Big Data and engineering knowledge; 2) new on-board sensing capabilities for frequent, low-cost track monitoring; 3) novel inspection and maintenance optimisation methods to efficiently allocate resources. The knowledge generated by this project is expected to decrease maintenance costs, safety risk, and track closures and therefore enhance the affordability and reliability of rail travel.Read moreRead less
Environmental Interpretation: Towards a globally relevant model for communicating with tourists from culturally diverse backgrounds. Environmental interpretation, a widely accepted approach to communicating with tourists in North America, Latin America and the U.K., is based on communication research undertaken mainly by researchers in western cultures or focused on Anglo-Saxon audiences. This project advances theory and practice by critically examining the relevance of this model for communic ....Environmental Interpretation: Towards a globally relevant model for communicating with tourists from culturally diverse backgrounds. Environmental interpretation, a widely accepted approach to communicating with tourists in North America, Latin America and the U.K., is based on communication research undertaken mainly by researchers in western cultures or focused on Anglo-Saxon audiences. This project advances theory and practice by critically examining the relevance of this model for communicating with visitors from a range of cultural backgrounds. Environmental messages, communication media and the application of environmental interpretation principles are experimentally manipulated to evaluate their relative effectiveness in communicating with international and domestic visitors from culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds, as a basis for refining the model for wider application.Read moreRead less
Determination of the condition and strength capacity of in-service timber poles in energy networks. The project addresses an important issue facing power industries and engineering community worldwide, that is, reliable and optimal management of power distribution infrastructures. The outcomes lead to new technologies that not only provide great social-economic benefits but advance knowledge and practice of the research at international level.