The Geotechnical and Environmental Research Group is home to nine academic staff, a computer officer, seven technicians, two administrative staff, two post graduate researchers and 56 graduate students. The interests of the group are wide, ranging from the fundamental mechanics of soils to encompass applications such as construction processes; infrastructure such as tunnels and shafts; environmental engineering; petroleum engineering structures such as offshore piles and pipelines; sustainable and renewable energy technologies like offshore wind farms and earthquake engineering including soil liquefaction. Since its formation more than 50 years ago the Group has produced over 260 PhDs.
The Group has extensive facilities for laboratory testing, centrifuge modelling, and numerical analysis. We operate both on the main Engineering Department site, where we have the Geotechnical Research Office, the Geomechanics Laboratory and the Geo-environmental Laboratory. At West Cambridge we have the Schofield Centre for Geotechnical Process and Construction Modelling.
The Schofield Centre has "focussed on the key questions of construction and environmental technology, where field, computational and physical modelling studies can be integrated in collaboration with industry", just as our original JIF grant promised. Under the leadership of our Chief Technician John Chandler, Kristian Pether, Chris McGinnie, Mark Smith and Richard Adams – have done sterling work, keeping the modelling work flowing, and steadily upgrading our facilities.
