Mitigating Vehicular Crashes into Masonry Buildings . Around 2000 vehicles crash annually into school, home and shop buildings located at close proximity to heavily trafficked roads in Australia and cause significant distress to occupants of building and vehicle. The impacted walls mostly of masonry, suffer severe damage often with vehicle intrusion into the building. Despite this, the intrusion mechanism is not understood and no effective mitigation strategies exist at present. This project wi ....Mitigating Vehicular Crashes into Masonry Buildings . Around 2000 vehicles crash annually into school, home and shop buildings located at close proximity to heavily trafficked roads in Australia and cause significant distress to occupants of building and vehicle. The impacted walls mostly of masonry, suffer severe damage often with vehicle intrusion into the building. Despite this, the intrusion mechanism is not understood and no effective mitigation strategies exist at present. This project will uncover the mechanics of vehicle intrusions through masonry walls and develop novel mitigation strategies using high energy absorbing auxetic composite render and innovative vibration isolation at wall edges. These innovations will lead to new theories that can save lives in the building and vehicle.Read moreRead less
Safety and robustness of tall timber buildings under extreme dynamic events. This project aims to develop innovative and robust structural connections in tall mass timber buildings by characterising their mechanical behaviour under dynamic loads induced by extreme events like earthquakes or progressive collapse. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the safe, economic, and efficient design of mass timber buildings. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced robustness design ....Safety and robustness of tall timber buildings under extreme dynamic events. This project aims to develop innovative and robust structural connections in tall mass timber buildings by characterising their mechanical behaviour under dynamic loads induced by extreme events like earthquakes or progressive collapse. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the safe, economic, and efficient design of mass timber buildings. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced robustness design guidelines for the engineering community. This should lead to significant benefits, such as contributing to uptake of viable low-cost timber housing solutions in response to population growth and contributing to net zero emissions in Australia by 2050, and transition to safer and resilient infrastructure in urban development.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100817
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$458,460.00
Summary
Predicting internal erosion in dams using real-time coupled experiments. Internal erosion causes nearly half of embankment dam failures globally. This project aims to develop a mechanics-based understanding of internal erosion to overcome the limitations of existing empirical approaches that do not capture the underlying physics. By innovatively coupling computational and physical experiments in real-time, this project expects to generate new insights that identify the factors leading to the ini ....Predicting internal erosion in dams using real-time coupled experiments. Internal erosion causes nearly half of embankment dam failures globally. This project aims to develop a mechanics-based understanding of internal erosion to overcome the limitations of existing empirical approaches that do not capture the underlying physics. By innovatively coupling computational and physical experiments in real-time, this project expects to generate new insights that identify the factors leading to the initiation and continuation of internal erosion. The expected outcome of this project is a probabilistic framework able to predict the internal erosion process. This should significantly enhance and inform the design of erosion control measures and provide a holistic risk assessment for embankment dams.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100722
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$362,245.00
Summary
Enabling Novel Hydrogen Storage via Combustible Ice for a Low-Carbon Future. This project aims to develop a new method for sustainable hydrogen storage. Hydrogen is vital for decarbonising Australia's economy, yet finding an efficient way for hydrogen storage is a global challenge. This project seeks to encapsulate hydrogen effectively in water to produce hydrogen-carrying combustible ice for efficient large-scale hydrogen storage, taking the advantages of water as the safest and cheapest raw ma ....Enabling Novel Hydrogen Storage via Combustible Ice for a Low-Carbon Future. This project aims to develop a new method for sustainable hydrogen storage. Hydrogen is vital for decarbonising Australia's economy, yet finding an efficient way for hydrogen storage is a global challenge. This project seeks to encapsulate hydrogen effectively in water to produce hydrogen-carrying combustible ice for efficient large-scale hydrogen storage, taking the advantages of water as the safest and cheapest raw material. Expected outcomes are cutting-edge knowledge and a new pathway of hydrogen storage. This project would contribute to turning Australia’s abundant renewable energy resources into substantial economic and environmental benefits and promote Australia's competitive edge in the global transition toward a low-carbon future.Read moreRead less
Multifunctional Structural Panels for Next-generation Infrastructure. This project aims to develop a multifunctional prefabricated structural panel for current and future infrastructure applications for both land and offshore environments. Prefabrication enables enhanced product control as well as the ability to rapidly construct whole structures or their components. The panels utilise an inner lightweight foam and fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite core with strong outer panels made from ....Multifunctional Structural Panels for Next-generation Infrastructure. This project aims to develop a multifunctional prefabricated structural panel for current and future infrastructure applications for both land and offshore environments. Prefabrication enables enhanced product control as well as the ability to rapidly construct whole structures or their components. The panels utilise an inner lightweight foam and fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite core with strong outer panels made from FRP sheets and high-strength concrete. The expected outcomes include experimental and numerical validation of the system, that will give designers and asset owners the confidence to adopt this new panel. The panel system presents an upward step change in construction technology and built infrastructure performance.Read moreRead less
Design guidelines for safety-critical controllers in high-risk environments. This project aims to generate novel product design guidelines for developing safer controllers for use by potentially stressed individuals in high-risk situations. It will do this by generating specific insights and verifying generalisable solutions from the context of total artificial heart recipients –who must engage with critical controllers constantly. This project expects to generate new knowledge in design by esta ....Design guidelines for safety-critical controllers in high-risk environments. This project aims to generate novel product design guidelines for developing safer controllers for use by potentially stressed individuals in high-risk situations. It will do this by generating specific insights and verifying generalisable solutions from the context of total artificial heart recipients –who must engage with critical controllers constantly. This project expects to generate new knowledge in design by establishing a new research topic around an under-examined user cohort. Expected outcomes of this project include interaction design theory developments and improved controller design techniques. This should provide significant benefits and competitive advantages by lowering stress and improving safety across a range of contexts.Read moreRead less
Averting Disaster: New Ways to Assess Bushfire Risk and Building Integrity. This project aims to develop a new method of assessing bushfire risk and building integrity using drone-based advanced technologies and computational fluid dynamics based heat transfer modelling for buildings located in bushfire prone areas. This coupled approach will enable the evaluation of bushfire effects on buildings and provide pre-bushfire condition/risk assessments, and site-specific cost-effective remedial actio ....Averting Disaster: New Ways to Assess Bushfire Risk and Building Integrity. This project aims to develop a new method of assessing bushfire risk and building integrity using drone-based advanced technologies and computational fluid dynamics based heat transfer modelling for buildings located in bushfire prone areas. This coupled approach will enable the evaluation of bushfire effects on buildings and provide pre-bushfire condition/risk assessments, and site-specific cost-effective remedial actions to reduce or eliminate bushfire damage and mitigate the risks pre-bushfire season. The new method will be applied to three selected buildings through which further enhancements and validations can be achieved. This project will showcase how the selected buildings and their components can be made bushfire safe.Read moreRead less
Light steel roof and wall systems under combined wind and bushfire actions. The project aims to investigate the complex behaviour of light cold-formed-steel roof and wall systems involving localized failures under the combined action of wind and bushfire using wind suction tests at elevated temperatures combined with advanced numerical modelling. It will generate new knowledge of the behaviour and strength of cold-formed-steel roof and wall systems under bushfire conditions. Expected outcomes in ....Light steel roof and wall systems under combined wind and bushfire actions. The project aims to investigate the complex behaviour of light cold-formed-steel roof and wall systems involving localized failures under the combined action of wind and bushfire using wind suction tests at elevated temperatures combined with advanced numerical modelling. It will generate new knowledge of the behaviour and strength of cold-formed-steel roof and wall systems under bushfire conditions. Expected outcomes include new design models for wind, bushfire and cold-formed-steel Standards. This will significantly improve the bushfire safety of buildings, since non-combustible steel roof and wall systems are used as building envelopes in bushfire prone areas, but are not designed to withstand recently discovered bushfire-enhanced winds.Read moreRead less
Precision-engineered hybrid core-shell materials . This project aims to develop new platform technologies for making nanostructured hybrid core-shell materials with exceptionally high drug loading and programmed release. Building on this research team's recent breakthrough in the precision engineering of core-shell materials, this research will revolutionise current approaches for making drug-loaded polymer and inorganic particles. Significant outcomes will include a novel sequential nanoprecipi ....Precision-engineered hybrid core-shell materials . This project aims to develop new platform technologies for making nanostructured hybrid core-shell materials with exceptionally high drug loading and programmed release. Building on this research team's recent breakthrough in the precision engineering of core-shell materials, this research will revolutionise current approaches for making drug-loaded polymer and inorganic particles. Significant outcomes will include a novel sequential nanoprecipitation platform technology for making drug-core polymer-shell nanoparticles, and a new bio-inspired approach for making hybrid drug-core silica-shell nanocomposites, and new materials for applications in programmed release and delivery systems.Read moreRead less