The research supported by a team of industrial partners who form the Project Oversight Group.
Details of the partner expertise are included below. Please contact us if you are interested in
engaging with us on this research or would like to discuss a related project.
AKT II
AKT II specialise in providing world-class engineering solutions integrating the superstructure and substructure design from conception all the way to construction. Over the last 25 years AKT II have engineered some of the most complex new-build or re-use of existing structures in every sector of our industry from housing to hotels, theatres to labs, from retail to offices and transport hubs. Dimitrios is leading the geotechnical team of AKT II with a passion in performance based design, providing holistic foundation design solutions based on constructability and integration between structural and geotechnical design. As one of the authors of the CIRIA C760 report on the design or embedded retaining walls, Dimitrios believes that corner effects around braced excavations are still not well understood and this research study will provide invaluable data on the response of third-party assets at the corners of excavations. It is a pleasure to have Dimitrios on board.
Arup / Oasys
Oasys is the in-house software development company of Arup, developing digital solutions for a better built environment. With an established range of structural analysis, geotechnical analysis and pedestrian simulation software, Oasys has recently released all-new cloud geotechnical software that unlocks the power of cloud computing for geotechnical analysis, and we are exploring ways of using our solutions to support innovative methods such as surrogate modelling. Oasys are delighted to be supporting the project by advising how it might be aligned with our software product development and testing. We are delighted to be working with Stuart Hardy, Mark Skinner and Carol Matthews.
Laing O'Rourke
Laing O'Rourke are an international contractor with an annual turnover of more than £2.5bn and experience of delivering complex commercial developments (for example 122 Leadenhall, The Post Building and Kensington Olympia) and large infrastructure projects (for example HS2, CrossRail, Northern Line Extension and Thames Tideway). Laing O'Rourke prides itself on having a large in-house technical capability that includes the design of braced excavations. Your research is therefore directly relevant to what Laing O'Rourke do as well the consultants that form an important part of our supply chain. Thanks to David Preece for representing Laing O'Rourke.
Braced excavations: what about the corners?
This Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)-funded research project (grant reference EP/X024849/1) is a collaboration between Durham University and the University of Dundee. The project is led by Professor Charles Augarde at Durham University and will run between July 2023 and June 2027. The research supported by a team of industrial partners, including: AKT II, Oasys, Skanska and Laing O'Rourke.