At a glance
2015 - 2019: MEng Civil Engineering @ University of Nottingham
2015 - 2018: Undergraduate placements with Balfour Beatty & Taylor Woodrow/VINCI UK
2019: Graduate with first class honours MEng Civil Engineering
2019 - 2023: Studying for PhD within Nottingham Centre for Geomechanics @ University of Nottingham
PhD Research Overview
The aim of my PhD is to investigate the behaviour of soil-structure interfaces, and improve the models engineers currently use to predict their behaviour. Interfaces occur in every single civil engineering project where man-made materials meet the ground. Rather oddly in respect of this fact, their behaviour is not widely understood, and vast amounts of resources are spent over-engineering their designs to stave off failure from wear over long periods of time. With a global effort to produce performance-driven design, a better understanding the physical mechanisms governing interface behaviour and how that may change over time, is crucial. A lack of full understanding of how the engineered world responds to wear can often lead to catastrophe. My supervisors are Dr Charles Heron, Professor Alec Marshall and Professor Glenn McDowell.
Other Projects
Outside the scope of my PhD work I support the research group’s efforts in other areas, namely teaching and centrifuge modelling.
Underground Pumped Hydraulic Storage
In cooperation with Aarhus University and University of Cambridge, I work on centrifuge modelling of an underground hydraulic energy storage solution. Publications are being worked on currently…
Publications
Published
- Effect of Crushed Particles on Soil-Structure Interface Behaviour
- Published at 4th European Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics
Under Review
- Cyclical Shear Response of Soil-Structure Interfaces at Micro and Macro Scale
- With the drive to deliver performance based design, it is increasingly important to properly model soil-structure interface behaviour. Traditional design of cyclical soil-structure interfaces is based on empirical methods, which does not cater for systems that experience many thousands of cycles over their life-span. This study seeks to examine the behaviour of the interface in the context of abrasive wear which is shown to play a critical role at cycle numbers exceeding those previously considered. It is shown that during cyclical shear loading of up to 1500 cycles, a clear change in soil particle size distribution, and abrasive wear of the structural interface occurs. These changes result in a significant variation of the interface stress ratio, which is the main parameter used in traditional design. To better understand the physical interactions driving these changes, a novel single-particle interface shear apparatus was developed. The shear response at single-particle scale correlates to that at the macroscopic scale,with a significant change in stress ratio observed at both scales under a constant normal load boundary condition. With a better understanding of the fundamental physical interaction between soils and structural interfaces, more accurate estimations of long-term cyclical shear response can be made leading to more economic and safer geotechnical designs.
## Other Interests
I’ve got something of an addiction for sports, training for ‘half-distance’ triathlons, cycling road racing, golf, oh and football too. When I’m not training I’m probably cooking or playing chess.