Industry focussed research themes
For our Research Award, MSc Research Grants and Undergraduate Research Grants we are especially interested in seeing research that addresses one of our themes.
The themes and challenges listed below are designed to better align research with the needs of industry and should be considered in the broader context of the climate emergency.
We also suggest you review the climate emergency research and development priorities outlined in Structural engineering innovation for a zero-carbon world: an R&D agenda to match the carbon budget, by Winslow et al.
The themes are:
Construction materials
- Advanced engineering materials
- Durable materials considering lifecycle issues
- New materials and materials used in other industries
- Reflections on ‘old materials’
- Additive manufacturing/3D printing
Loading on buildings
- Imposed loading on floors
- Assessment of actual loading on structures
- Designing buildings for being adaptable to load levels
- Combinations of loading and a review/evaluation of international practice
Global solutions
- Locally-led solutions (research carried out at a local university or local industry)
- Enabling local societal security
- Use of accessible technology
- Resilience to natural hazards and/or climate change
Systems and resilience thinking
- Learning from failures
- Resilience of elements, structures and systems
- Learning from performance/inspection of built infrastructure
- Learning from other sectors
- Removing waste and lean thinking
- Communication and collaboration in construction
- Enhancement in production/construction/efficiency/cost savings
- Off-site and modular construction
- Designing for re-use
- System design by advanced analysis
Digital engineering
- Analysis of large datasets
- Use of digital engineering, virtual reality
- Optimisation
- Digital workflow
- Learning from BIM and structural health monitoring data
- Cloud computing
- Competency in the use of computer models