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DEM model calibration and validation for cohesive soil-machine interactions |
Prof. Jin Ooi
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The modelling of cohesive soils is a challenging task of great importance in many earth moving processes. In these cases, the understanding of the interaction soil-machine is vital to try to optimize the process and avoid problems. This project aims to investigate the capabilities of DEM cohesive contact models to capture with a sufficient level of accuracy the mechanical behaviours involved in soil-machine interactions.
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A multi-scale approach to characterising fluid contribution to conductive heat transfer in dense granular systems |
Prof. Jin Ooi
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For granular materials with low thermal conductivity heat transfer occurs through interstitial gases as well as through physical contacts. Existing particle based models are ill suited to dense systems so a multi-scale approach has been used to correlate the local packing structure to the gas contribution to conductive heat transfer in dense granular systems.
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Challenging RISK: Achieving Resilience by Integrating Societal and Technical Knowledge |
Professor Luke Bisby
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This project is concerned with socially integrated mitigation of multiple structural risks in the urban environment, with a focus on the linked risks of earthquake and fire. Fire is the largest contributor to building damage following earthquakes. To date, this research area has largely been ignored as it crosses the boundaries between the knowledge areas of earthquake and fire safety engineering. The combination of factors adds to the challenges in risk estimation already existing in each distinct area. There is currently no universally accepted method for accounting for the effect of strengthening practices on building vulnerability to earthquakes (let alone earthquakes followed by fire). In the case of fire safety engineering, few credible techniques for damage estimation or risk-based design currently exist due to a lack of requisite input data. This project will develop, through large scale structural testing and computational analysis, new technical engineering solutions to these problems. And, for the first time, these technical engineering solutions will be developed explicitly accounting for the social context within which they are to be enacted.
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Effect of particle shape, size and particle friction in granular solid flow in railway ballast |
Prof. Xuecheng Bian
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The aim is to develop a new understanding of the micromechanics of railway trackbed subjected to dynamic loads induced by high speed trains. This should lead to safer design of high-speed railway systems which require less maintenance and, therefore, are more sustainable.
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Discrete Element Modeling of High-Speed Railway Embankment |
Prof. Xuecheng Bian
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The aim is to develop a new understanding of the micromechanics of railway trackbed subjected to dynamic loads induced by high speed trains. This should lead to safer design of high-speed railway systems which require less maintenance and, therefore, are more sustainable.
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Effect of particle shape, size and particle friction in granular solid flow in railway ballast |
Prof. Xuecheng Bian
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In the Chinese southeast coastal areas, most of the rail transit infrastructures are built on the soft soil. Infrastructures construction and operation including high speed railway or urban railway system require a good understanding of the behavior of the soft soil subject to the static and dynamic loading induced by the infrastructure.
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Development and use of an advanced ZVI nanomaterial for water treatment applications |
Dr Andrea Joana Correia Semiao, Dr Blanca Antizar-Ladislao
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Miss Underwood's doctoral research seeks to develop and test new nano-composite materials for the use in water treatment. She wishes to improve upon the existing nano zero-valent iron technologies as well as to explore how specific nanotechnologies can be applied in an economic and incentivized fashion for successful technological adoption.
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Simulation of dense suspensions with discrete element method and a coupled lattice Boltzmann method |
Dr. Jin Sun
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Suspensions, mixtures of a fluid and particles, are widespread in nature and industry. However, many open questions, such as the particle interactions in dense suspensions, have not been answered [1].
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Simulation of Irregular, Abradable Particles in DEM |
Dr Kevin Hanley
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Particle shape has important effects on bulk materials as sandpiles and mixtures; temporal changes of the shape (e.g. due to surface abrasion) also have severe consequences in many industrial sectors. To represent irregular particles, a compact “irregularity function” can be stored for each particle which describes how the shape deviates from a bounding sphere. Abrasion can be studied by adopting irregularity functions which can change with time depending on contact force.
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Investigating the micromechanics of granular soils subjected to cyclic loading using the discrete element method |
Dr Kevin Hanley
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The objective of this research is to investigate the behavior of Dunkerque sand under undrained triaxial cyclic loading using the discrete element method (DEM).
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