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A laureate professor and engineering pioneer from the University of Newcastle has been elected to the Royal Society, a fellowship of the world’ s most eminent scientific minds.
Scott Sloan, a geotechnical engineer who heads up the university’ s Priority Research Centre for Geotechnical and Materials Modelling, as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence for Geotechnical Science and Engineering, is one of only four Australians amongst the 47 new fellows and 10 new foreign members elected to the prestigious group this year.
This society is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence and has included luminaries such as Sir Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.
“ I’ m thrilled at the news,” Sloan says.“ It’ s not that common for engineers to be elected as Fellows of the Royal Society.”
Sloan is a pioneer of methods that enable engineers to predict the collapse states of geostructures such as tunnels, dams, highways and foundations. These methods help engineers design cheaper, safer civil infrastructure across the globe.
Here, he speaks with Campus Review about his research and recognition, and puts forward his predictions for the future of his field.
CR: How did you react to being elected to this prestigious group?
SS: It was obviously great news. Not only for me, but also for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Geotechnical Science and Engineering here at Newcastle. With about 80 Noble laureates in the fellowship of approximately 1600, it is certainly distinguished company. I think my election is a reflection of the quality of the research in geotechnical engineering that has been done at UON over the past 30 years. Indeed, the geotechnical team here is a world leader in its field and home to a number of outstanding researchers of all ages.
How to build a reputation
Multidisciplinary work helps create models that make cheaper, safer infrastructure – and garners an invite to the Royal Society.
Scott Sloan interviewed by Antonia Maiolo
You are a pioneer of new methods that enable engineers to predict the collapse of states of geo-structures, such as a tunnels, dams, highways and foundations. Can you tell us about these methods? At the risk of being a little bit technical, the methods are based on what are known as the limit theorems of classical plasticity, finite elements and advanced optimisation algorithms. Collectively, they are known as finite element limit analysis techniques. They permit engineers to predict how much load a structure, or the earth that it’ s built on, can sustain before it fails.
These methods give upper and lower bounds on the collapse load directly, and they have the invaluable advantage of having an inbuilt error indicator, which is simply the difference between the upper and lower bounds.
The techniques are rapidly supplanting widely used, but theoretically suspect, methods – such as limit equilibrium, which has been used in geotechnical applications since around the 1700s.
Because the methods are based on finite elements, we can use them to solve a wide range of practical problems involving non-uniform soil profiles, anisotropic behaviour – where properties are different in different directions – complex geometries and complicated boundary conditions.
We’ ve used them to predict the stability of a wide range of infrastructure projects, including tunnels; for example, in the London Underground and for Italian railways, and various underground mines.
We’ ve also used them to predict the behaviour of foundations – both onshore and offshore, in the oil and gas sector, as well as to predict the stability of large retaining walls, which are typically used in arterial road projects, including those in Boston and Chicago.
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