Civil engineering
Civil and Structural Engineering (including Building and Construction) is the centre of growth in the Department, and it already plays a vital role in research and in teaching. This discipline brings together the strategic research themes enlisted below. This encompasses research, engineering, and field application activities that also include commercial and industry-funded activities.
Our department focuses on fundamental and applied research across civil and environmental engineering, and geomatics. Explore our activities within these research areas below.
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Advanced protective technologies for engineering structures
We provide a full range of capabilities in the protective engineering services for high profile infrastructure projects. We work to resolve security problems such as bomb blasts, ballistic, fire, earthquake, wind storm and climate change.
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Asia-Pacific Research Network for Resilient Affordable Housing
We aim to develop a coordinated approach for the delivery of affordable and resilient prefabricated housing throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
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Australia-China Centre for Maritime Engineering
The Centre is working to establish a new generation of metocean modelling in maritime engineering, wave-ocean forecasting and industry practice.
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Carbon capture and storage
The Peter Cook Centre for Carbon Capture and Storage Research seeks to develop environmentally and socially acceptable, cost effective carbon capture and storage solutions for a carbon constrained world.
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Engineering Project Management
Our expertise are in the following areas: public private partnerships; governance in projects; risk management in large infrastructure projects; and lean processes.
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Geopolymer and mineral processing
The Geopolymer and Mineral Processing Group studies the formation, molecular structure, and performance properties of novel advanced geopolymeric materials, and in the development of unconventional technology for precious metal extraction.
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Impact engineering group
The aim of the impact engineering group is to develop simple solutions to sophisticated problems such as impact loading on building facades and rockfall barriers in a cost-effective manner.
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Indoor air quality
Our research investigates the causes and consequences of exposure to pollutants, with a focus on indoor built environments.
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Infrastructure asset protection and management
Using reliability-based computational methods to accurately predict future damage from traffic demand and degradation of construction materials
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Porous Media Research Laboratory
The Porous Media Research Laboratory focuses on the fundamental understanding of soil behaviour and geo-related phenomena, along with other porous materials, energy geotechnics and geophysics.
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Ocean engineering
Our research spans ocean and coastal engineering, oceanography, marine meteorology, air-sea interactions, including the extreme weather conditions, remote sensing of the ocean and climate studies.
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Offshore geomechanics
Our research provides better understanding and reliable solutions in offshore geotechnical engineering, including seabed sediment characterisation, offshore structure-seabed interaction and georisk mitigation towards safe and sustainable engineering in the Ocean.
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Prefabricated housing manufacturing
The Centre for Advanced Manufacturing of Prefabricated Housing works with industry partners to deliver breakthrough product and process innovations that will enable the Australian housing industry to compete on a global stage.
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Renewable energy and energy efficiency
The energy we consume is impacted by the technologies we use to consume it, and produce it. Our research focusses on the theoretical and practical applications of energy systems and their planning.
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Simulation-guided complex systems engineering
Focussing on CO2 geo-sequestration, the Matthai team unravels the complex interplay of sub-surface processes in geological structures by means of novel numerical simulations, simultaneously considering wide-ranging time and length scales from the rock pore to the scale of the earth’s crust.
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Sustainable production management and systems engineering
We investigate the socio-technical interactions in engineering workplaces and activities with an aim to incorporate challenges such as sustainability, technological change and large complex systems.
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Structures and buildings
We work closely with industry and government organisations in the design, modelling and development of advanced materials and structural systems for construction, infrastructure and defence.
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Transport
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Unconventional gas recovery
We have made great contributions to clarifying the CO2-ECSG (enhanced coal seam gas recovery) field by identifying CO2 behaviour in deep coal seams in its super-critical state.
* Offshore Geomechanics Group image credit: The Windfarm by Askjell, CC BY 2.0