Given the design and maintenance challenges associated with rail tracks used by heavy freight and high speed passenger trains along terrains characterized by adverse ground conditions (often encountering very soft clays and slope failures), Centre for Geomechanics and Railway Engineering at University of Wollongong has been 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 through an active group of currently 35 full-time Research Students and 10 postdoctoral research fellows working under 7 tenured geotechnical academics places UOW’s geotechnics and railway engineering research at the top of the region in a number of key areas including:
- Soft soil engineering and ground improvement
- Stability assessment of rail corridors and road embankments
- Dynamic modelling and prediction of rail track performance in problematic soils
- Assessment of rail ballast degradation
- Monitoring of slope movements
- Landslides hazards and risk management
- Improvement of soft and erodible clay foundations
- Remediation of acid sulphate soils to prevent environmental damage and corrosion of infrastructure components
- Use of geosynthetics for improving the performance of infrastructure
- Dam engineering including filtration and internal instability assessment
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 modelling 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 trck 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.
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.
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.
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.
Past History of Research
Most of the research areas as discussed in Section 1 and illustrated in Appendix 1 have been conducted since mid 1990’s. Since than, 15-20 research students have graduated in those areas. The outstanding facilities for geotechnical testing and track simulation are shown in Appendix 2. The large-scale testing rigs are unique to University of Wollongong, and all of them have been designed and built in-house through the efforts of dedicated academic staff, excellent research students and skilful technical staff. Fundamental research launched in 1980’s in various aspects of foundation engineering and landslides has now been elevated to cutting-edge applications in the field, including the use of GIS and remote sensing. The high rate of ARC-Linkage grants in these geotechnical fields during the past few years alone have contributed to over 2 million dollars, and a few more ARC-Linkage and other Commonwealth grants are currently pending through the efforts of Phil Flentje, Robin Chowdhury, Buddhima Indraratna, Hadi Khabbaz and Alex Remennikov.
