03 Dec 2024
Geotechnical Engineering Lecture delivers State of the Art in Construction Monitoring
“Geotechnical Engineering Proceedings Lecture” at the Institution of Civil Engineers explored work monitoring the construction of a large diameter caisson
Photo reproduced with permission from Dr Andrew Ridley
Oxford Engineer Professor Byron Byrne FREng FICE, was joined by alumni Dr Ronan Royston (DPhil, 2018) and Dr Brian Sheil (former Departmental Lecturer) to deliver the biennial Geotechnical Engineering Proceedings Lecture” at the Institution of Civil Engineers for the British Geotechnical Association.
The lecture took place on Tuesday 19 November 2024, exploring doctoral research undertaken by Royston at Oxford, supervised by Sheil and Byrne, on “monitoring the construction of a large diameter caisson in sand”, in partnership with civil engineering contractor Ward and Burke Construction.
The lecture described the development of novel instrumentation and monitoring equipment, and their deployment onto a live civil engineering construction site. A key objective of the research was to provide real-time feedback to the site engineering team to inform the construction process, as it proceeded, to improve deliverability, reduce cost and mitigate risk.
The monitored data also revealed the occurrence of complex engineering behaviour during the construction process that has motivated the development of new and improved design procedures. The work also won the Institution’s 2022 Crampton Prize on practical geotechnical engineering.
Dr. Ronan Royston oversees the design and delivery of major infrastructure projects for Ward and Burke Construction across the UK and Ireland. Ronan completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford, focusing on soil-structure interaction for large diameter caissons. His research concentrated on the design and construction of underground pumping stations and tunnels.
Dr Brian Sheil joined the University of Oxford in 2014 as a postdoctoral researcher in experimental geotechnics focused on industry-funded research projects and was subsequently promoted to Departmental Lecturer in geotechnical engineering in 2017. In 2018, he was awarded a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow at Oxford.
Professor Byron Byrne holds the Ørsted / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair in Advanced Geotechnical Design at the University of Oxford, where he pursues a wide-ranging research program in geotechnical engineering. He works collaboratively with industry to solve practical problems applying experimental work, at both laboratory scale and larger scale in the field, theoretical analysis and computational techniques, to develop simplified design methods for the engineer. He has a specific interest in offshore geotechnics, principally the design of foundations for offshore wind turbines, but also offshore pipeline design, as well as for onshore infrastructure activities, including pipelines, caissons, and other related soil-structure interaction problems. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
The paper can be downloaded as open access from the ICE Virtual Library at “Monitoring the construction of a large-diameter caisson in sand”.
