The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal
association for geotechnical engineers in the United Kingdom.
The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) is the principal
association for geotechnical engineers in the United Kingdom.
29th Mar 2022 18:15 hours
On-line event
The Cooling Prize competition is held annually by the British Geotechnical Association (BGA) and is named after Dr Leonard Cooling, one of the founders of British Soil Mechanics, a former chair of the BGA, and the 2nd Rankine Lecturer. The Cooling Prize competition is intended for professionals in the geotechnical/ground engineering industry in the early stages of their careers.
The 53rd Cooling Prize Competition will be hosted by the Scottish Ground Engineering Group as a on-line event. Please book using the link below to access the on-line viewing link.
At the event there will be a short presentation on the history of the Competition, presented by Sergio Solera, after which the four finalists will present their papers, and there will be a keynote lecture.
The Cooling Prize Finalists are:
Nick Dewar of Arup: Warehouse Building Distress - Proposed Remediation Options.
Stan Jun Qi of Imperial/Atkins: Numerical Evaluation of Empirical Estimates of Seepage through Contiguous Piled Walls.
Shaun Nevill of Jacobs: Implicit Assessment of Tunnelling Effects on Shaft Head House Structure.
Sarah Tallett-Williams of Jacobs: Seismic Ground Response Verification for UK Nuclear by Borehole Array.
The judges are Prof David Toll of Durham University (BGA Chair), Dr Fleur Loveridge of University of Leeds, Tanja Waaser of Transport Scotland, and Sergio Solera of Mott MacDonald.
After the presentations, while the judges consider their verdict, a short keynote lecture will be given by Professor Simon Wheeler of the University of Glasgow.
This lecture builds on the work of Dr Riccardo Scarfone who was
runner-up in the 2021 Cooling Prize Competition with a presentation on
numerical modelling of sloping capillary barrier systems (CBSs) subjected to
realistic long-term patterns of rainfall. He demonstrated, through
thermo-hydraulic finite element modelling incorporating soil-atmosphere
interactions combined with computational limit analysis calculations, that CBSs
have the potential to prevent rainfall-induced slope instabilities even in
cool, wet climatic regions, such as the UK. The current talk will build on this
by presenting subsequent research on the development of a simplified method of
analysis for capillary barriers on slopes subjected to variable rainfall,
without the need for complex numerical modelling. The intention is that this
simplified method of analysis should ultimately form part of a practical design
methodology for capillary barriers on slopes.
Simon Wheeler is Cormack Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Glasgow, a position he has held since 1996. He is a former Head of the Department of Civil Engineering and former Deputy Head of the School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow. Simon has been researching and teaching Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering for more than 40 years. He has published widely on many topics, but is probably best known for his contributions to understanding the mechanical and hydraulic behaviour of soils under unsaturated conditions. Amongst various awards, he was recipient of the Telford Medal of ICE in 2004.