Abstract
Urban congestion is a serious problem in many cities, so the creation of underground space and in particular the development of underground transport is environmentally essential for our future megacities. How can tunnels be built in ground sometimes as soft as toothpaste? What can go wrong? Will buildings above be affected by subsidence? What else is underground already that might get in the way or be adversely affected? Geotechnical engineering - the application of the science of soil mechanics and engineering geology - plays a key role in answering these questions.
The talk will describe the critical importance of geology and the development and application of the latest underground construction techniques. Examples of current and future projects from around the world will demonstrate the size, technical challenges and complexity of modern underground construction. Protection from subsidence is critical and new ways to evaluate how buildings may be affected by tunnelling and deep excavations will be explained; innovative protective techniques will also be described. Novel techniques for monitoring construction using fibre optic technology and wireless sensor networks will be described, illustrated by some recent case histories.
About the speaker
Robert Mair is the Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering and Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cambridge University. He was Master of Jesus College for the period 2001-2011, and for the past three years he has also been Senior Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He is one of the founding Directors of the Geotechnical Consulting Group (GCG) based in London and Hong Kong, started in 1983.
After graduating from Cambridge in 1971 his early career was spent in Hong Kong working for Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick. Specialising in geotechnical engineering, he worked in industry for 27 years until 1998, when he was appointed to the Professorship at Cambridge. He leads a substantial research group collaborating closely with industry, focusing on the geotechnics of underground construction and innovative field monitoring techniques. He is also an active consultant on civil, geotechnical and tunnelling projects worldwide and has recently been appointed Chief Engineering Advisor to the Laing O’Rourke Group. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2004, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007 and was awarded the CBE in 2010 for services to engineering.
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