Key research

• Identifying the key mechanisms at a micro-structural level that dictate critical aspects of soil constitutive behaviour, and quantifying that behaviour with scientifically sound models that capture features of seabed sediments behaviour.
• Analysing and quantifying risks to offshore infrastructure due to geotechnical hazards and establishing a design framework for optimising the choice of foundation and subsea engineering systems , taking account of risk factors.
• Developing conceptual models for calculating foundation performance, accounting for the specificity of environment, and to encapsulate these models into unified design methods.
• Developing coupled fluid-structure-soil models for problems such as multi-footed platforms, scour, pipeline response, deep water riser and moored systems, as well as emerging renewable energy systems.
• Developing innovative computational techniques and tools necessary to model offshore infrastructure, with a focus on developing computational algorithms capturing multi-phase sediment response, consolidation and strain rate effects in large deformation problems.
• Developing innovative physical modelling techniques that deliver research needs relevant to the complexity of offshore sediments behaviour and offshore soil structure interaction.
• Developing stochastic analysis techniques to account for natural variability of sediment properties and environmental loadings in the quantifying of risk to offshore foundations and infrastructure.
  

The Centre is an international leader in the field of offshore geotechnical engineering research. This has led to many peer-reviewed conference and journal publications, some of which have won awards. Our research mainly focuses on foundation systems in the calcareous sediments found off the coast of Australia, but projects have also taken us to the waters off Brazil, India, The Middle East and Southern Africa.