Cambridge University Engineering Department (CU)

Brief profile

The Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge teaches and conducts research in all the main branches of engineering except for Chemical Engineering which is a separate department. There are more than 1,000 undergraduate and 300 postgraduate students in the Department; the standard of both undergraduate and graduate entry is exceptionally high. The present staff of the Department consists of 17 Professors, 10 Readers and about 90 Lecturers and Assistant Lecturers.

LOLEIF related research falls within the scope of the Geotechnics and Petroleum Engineering groups. The Geotechnics group are led by Professor Robert Mair FEng FICE and Professor A.C. Palmer and includes 1 reader, 4 lecturers, 3 research workers and more than 20 research students. This group developed and applied the ’cam-clay’ theory for the mechanical behaviour of a frictional aggregate of interlocking soil particles. A consequence of this theory is that good model tests can be made at reduced scale and increased acceleration.

The group's Geotechnical Centrifuge Centre places Cambridge University at the forefront of centrifuge modelling. The Centre's centrifuges have been used to study
many practical problems, including e.g.

• jack-up leg fixity in the deployment of mobile offshore platforms in the North Sea,
• ground liquefaction in earthquakes,
• thaw-induced settlement or frost heave of pipelines in permafrost,
• sea bed scour of iceberg keels damaging sub-sea oil and gas pipelines, pipeline uplift resistance and backfill process dynamics
• and soil-structure interaction theories.

Involvement in and contributions to the LOLEIF project

CU led Subtask 4.4 - Fracture Dynamics Model and contributed to Task 1,  Subtask 4.5 - Probability Approach and  Task 5 - Recommendation of Ice Forces on Coastal Structures.
 
 

Contacts
 

Cambridge University Engineering Department (CU) Trumpington Street  Cambridge CB2 IPZ, UK      Tel.: +44 1223 33 - 2718 Fax.: +44 1223 33 - 2662 WWW: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk	For information regarding  CU's participation in  the LOLEIF project:  Prof. Dr. Andrew C. Palmer Cambridge University Engineering Department Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Division  Petroleum Group   Tel.: +44 1223 33 - 2718  Email: acp24@eng.can.ac.uk
Professor John Dempsey (Clarkson University) joined temporarily  CU as Senior Research Fellow to work for a year on fracture mechanics aspects in the LOLEIF project. He is principally concerned with scaling, with interactions between ice response and hydrodynamics during icebreaking, and with lead formation.	Prof. Dr. John Dempsey Clarkson University P.O. Box 5710 Potsdam, N.Y. 13699-5710, USA   Tel.: Phone: +1 315 268 - 6517 Email: john@clarkson.edu

Please visit also Cambridge University's and the Engineering Department's web sites for further information.
 

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Cambridge University - Engineering Department  - all rights reserved,
in compliance with applicable terms and conditions for
European Commission Research and Development Projects
and agreements within the LOLEIF Project Consortium.
 
 

Last update: 2001-07-22