ARC Discovery Project funding success

Friday, 21 November 2014

Professor Daichao Sheng and Dr Jubert Pineda have been awarded more than $782,000 in ARC Discovery Project funding commencing in 2015 for their research project Mechanics of Hard Soils and Soft Rocks.

About the project

Hard soils and soft rocks are transitional materials that have properties evolving from soft rock to soft soil. They are widespread in Australia and typical examples include mudstone, claystones, shales and tuffs. These materials are very difficult to handle, mainly due to the fact that their strength, stiffness and volume can change substantially in response to environmental actions such as cyclic wetting and drying. Proper prediction of the transitional behaviour of these materials is crucially important for analysing the stability and serviceability of civil structures founded on them. This project aims to develop a theoretical and practical framework for characterising the transitional behaviour of hard soils and soft rocks.

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