Sustained and Excellent Performance
| The proposed
Research Strength is built around several interdisciplinary
research phases (e.g. geotechnical, geological, mechanical
and structural) interacting between ground conditions,
wheel loading and rail track performance. The existing
and proven research excellence places UoW easily at the
top of the region in a number of key areas, including the
dynamic modeling and prediction of track performance in
poor soils, automated monitoring of track defects, assessment
of wheel-rail-ballast degradation, effect of slope movements
on rail tracks, landslides hazards and risk management,
improvement of soft coastal clay foundations, remediation
of acid sulphate soils to prevent corrosion of track components,
decision support systems applied to track maintenance scheduling,
stability assessment of rail corridors and embankments,
use of synthetic materials for improving sub-surface drainage
and reducing track deflection, and the role of filtration
in eroded soil retention. |
1.1 National
and International Recognition
The active research
team has gained much national and international repute
over the years. To cite a few examples, for innovative
soft clay improvement with synthetic vertical drains,
Prof. Buddhima Indraratna was honoured with Swedish Geotechnical
Society Award in June 1999. During the past 4-5 years,
Indraratna has delivered 9 Invited Keynote papers and
Special Guest Lectures at a number of International Conferences,
and world-renowned institutions such as Cambridge University
and MIT. Dr. Hadi Khabbaz was awarded the
ANZ Geotechnical Society Award for his outstanding research
on unsaturated soils in 1999. Dr. Phil Flentje (with
two others) was awarded the Emergency Management Australia
(EMA) Safer Communities Award in the Post Disaster Local
Government Stream in 1998. He was awarded both
the State and the Federal Award in the same category
for his outstanding applied research on geo-hazard and
risk assessment. |
1.2 Research
Income
The background
IP, regular ARC grants, other Commonwealth and State
government grants and various industry sponsored projects
lead to the UoW being a major shareholder of the CRC
for Railway Engineering and Technologies, in which Indraratna
is the national Theme Leader for Innovative Track Upgrading
and Maintenance. The annual research revenue for
UoW through Rail-CRC is approx. $750,000, which is considered
to be the highest return of ‘cash’ given the relatively
small number of UoW academics involved in Rail-CRC. The
annual revenue from the ongoing ARC-linkage grants in
soft clay improvement, ballast-track analysis, geotechnical
hazard and risk assessment, and acidic soil improvement
exceed $350000 per year, including the Commonwealth and
Industry contributions. Over the years, the revenue from
direct industry sources for R & D projects and consultancies
have often exceeded $100,000 per year. In total,
this Research Strength is guaranteed to receive more
than million dollars per year to the University. |
1.3 Publications
and Student Completions
The rate and
quality of publications within this group is undoubtedly
one of the highest in the University for a relatively
small group of academics. During the past 5-6 years or
so, the number of refereed journal and conference articles
from these active researchers have exceeded 150, and
2 research books on the aspects of discontinuous geological
media have been published by Balkema (Netherlands), one
of the most well known engineering book publishers. Most
of these publications have resulted through excellent
research efforts of students, where the completion rate
of PhD’s has consistently been 2-3 per year. With the
relatively new academic staff now supervising more students,
this completion rate is expected to go up in the near
future. |
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