Visitors
The CGSE fosters international collaboration with the aim of developing and strengthening partnerships with leading academic institutions and companies world-wide. In developing this collaboration, there is a particular focus on the nation's energy and transport infrastructure, both onshore and offshore. The activities of the CGSE include advanced numerical modelling, physical modelling in the UWA centrifuges, sophisticated laboratory testing, and full scale field testing at the national soft soil test site at Ballina NSW. A key aim of the research is to develop cheaper and safer designs for physical infrastructure through the application of geotechnical science.
The CGSE hosts up to 20 international visitors per annum on short and long term stays.
Konstantinos (Kostis) Georgiadis Oct 2011 - present
Kostis received his PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK in 2003. He joined the Department of Civil Engineering at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece as a lecturer (2005-2010) and since as an assistant professor. His main research interests are numerical and analytical modelling of geotechnical structures, applications of plasticity theory to geotechnical analysis, foundation engineering and constitutive modelling of saturated and unsaturated soils.
Kostis is visiting the Centre of Geotechnical and Materials Modelling for a period of six months and will be collaborating with Laureate Professor Scott Sloan on semi-analytical and numerical limit analysis of deep foundations.
Mario Vicente da Silva Oct 2011 - present
Mario's research focuses on computational mechanics, namely computational plasticity - numerical implementation of the limit analysis theorems, the use of parallel processing for large scale computations, development of hybrid-mixed finite element models using non nodal Lagrange polynomials as approximation functions and the use of continuum damage mechanics to model the physically non-linear behavior of concrete structures. Mario received his Ph.D. degree in Civil Engineering from (UNL) University Nova of Lisbon for his dissertation on "Tridimensional numerical implementation of the kinematic theorem of limit analysis" and also holds MSc degree in Structural Engineering from IST - Technical University of Lisbon. He briefly worked as a structural design engineer before joining the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of UNL, first as a Teaching Assistant (2002-2009) and later on as an Assistant Professor.
Mario is collaborating with Kristian Krabbenhoft and Andrei Lyamin on various research projects and will be based at the University of Newcastle until September 2012.
Professor Vaughan Griffiths Nov 2011 - present
Professor Griffiths completed his Masters degree at UC Berkeley and Doctoral degrees at the University of Manchester, U.K. He is currently Professor of Civil Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines where his primary research interests lie in application of finite element and risk assessment methodologies to a broad range of geotechnical engineering topics. He was previously on the Civil Engineering faculty at the University of Manchester, UK and has held visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of Sydney and the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He has written over 200 research papers and is the co-author of three textbooks, 'Programming the Finite Element Method', 4th edition, Wiley (2004), 'Numerical Methods for Engineers', 2nd edition, Chapman & Hall/CRC (2006) and 'Risk Assessment in Geotechnical Engineering' Wiley (2008). He gives regular short-courses for ASCE Continuing Education on 'Risk Assessment in Geotechnical Engineering' and 'Finite Elements in Geotechnical Engineering'. He is on the Board of Direction of the ASCE and currently serves as an Editor of the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering. Professor Griffiths is a licensed Professional Engineer in Colorado and a Chartered Engineer in the U.K.
Professor Griffiths is a Partner Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Geotechnical Science and Engineering. During his six month stay in Newcastle, Professor Griffiths will be collaborating with several members in the Centre of Excellence including Laureate Professor Scott Sloanand Dr Jinsong Huang.
