The Structures Research Group

Every day, somewhere in the world, major events occur that result inloss of life, significant economic losses, or long term impact on the environment.

Structural engineering research can help to mitigate the dangers to the community of such events, through improving the resilience of structures to catastrophic failure, while at the same time seeking ways to lower the costs and environmental footprint of building and maintaining major structures.

The Structures Research Group contributes to the needs of the community through research underpinning structural and environmental resilience.

Our internationally recognised research is focussed on two main aspects of resilience, Extreme Loading  Resilience and Enhancing Structural Sustainability.

Extreme Loading Resilience:

Our focus here is on analysing, developing and maintaining structures that are more able to withstand extreme events, such as earthquakes and blasts, in order to protect human life. Specific areas of research we are undertaking include:

• Dynamic analysis of extreme loading events such as blast, earthquake, tsunami, floods and high wind.
• Advanced numerical modelling of reinforced concrete members under load up to collapse.
• Non-linear analysis of concrete, steel and masonry structures.
• Finite Element Analysis of composite structures.
• Prediction of pressure loads due to blast events.
• Retrofit for enhanced structural resilience to extreme load.

Click here to find out more about our Extreme Loading Resilience Research Program.

Enhancing Structural Sustainability:

Our focus here is on decreasing the impact on the environment and improving the safety of structures during construction and their working lifetime. This is achieved through undertaking research into:

• Retrofit of concrete, masonry and steel structures for extending length of service.
• Structural health monitoring using non-destructive techniques.
• Sustainable Design.
• Application of new materials such as advanced composites and geopolymer concrete.

Click here to find out more about our Structural Sustainability Research Program.

Since 1991 members of the Structures Research Group have been continually involved in research supported by grants from the Australian Research Council. Much of this work has also involved international collaborations. Some of our major achievements include:

• Mike Griffith was engaged by the New Zealand Government to report on the performance of unreinforced masonry buildings to the NZ Royal Commission of Enquiry into Building Failure caused by the Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.
• In 2011 Jerry Vaculik and Mike Griffith received the TMS Outstanding Paper Award from the North American Masonry Society for their paper Static tests of unreinforced brick masonry walls in 2-way bending which was published in the TMS Journal.

For more information:

• On the overall research of the group, please contact Prof Mike Griffith.
• On postgraduate research opportunities, please contact Dr Chengqing Wu.
• On industry research, development and consulting capabilities,  please contact Michael Rumsewicz.