Charles Augarde

Reader in Civil Engineering
& Deputy to the Head of the Science Faculty (Postgraduate)

New book: Earth Building: History, science and conservation by Paul Jaquin and ... me, published January 6th 2012

Contact

School of Engineering and Computing Sciences
Durham University
South Road
Durham DH1 3LE, UK
T: 0191 334 2504: F: 0191 334 2407: M: 07920 710702 (work)
charles dot augarde at dur.ac.uk

Research Interests

Computational solid mechanics

Finite element methods
Scaled boundary methods
Meshless (or meshfree) methods
Computational fracture modelling
High performance computing applied to the above
Limit analysis

Iterative solvers for linear systems arising from finite element and meshless analysis

Computational geomechanics, particularly the modelling of soft ground tunnelling
Mechanics of earthen construction materials, particularly rammed earth
Unsaturated soil mechanics

Positions Available

PhD and MSc (by research) project ideas in the Mechanics Research group (which covers computational mechanics and geotechnics) at Durham.
Funding for PhDs is always difficult to obtain but do not let that stop you from considering it. Application is free. Feel free to approach us with your ideas.

Publications

A complete list of my publications can be found here. Please email me if you would like a copy of a paper.
The Mechanics group has a preprints service available here.
My entries at ResearcherID and Google Scholar Citations.
Latest items:

Ullah, Z., Augarde, C.E. 2012. Finite deformation elasto-plastic modelling using an adaptive meshless method. Computers and Structures, in press, available online 21 April 2012. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruc.2012.04.001
Zhuang, X., Augarde, C.E., Mathisen, K. 2012. Fracture modelling using meshless methods and level sets in 3D: framework and modelling. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, in press.

Research projects recentish

Limesnet. Low Impact Materials and Innovative Engineering Solutions Network, 2011-12. EPSRC funded. " Our Vision is to create a focused international multi-disciplinary community of leading academic researchers, industry members and other stakeholders, who share a common view for the development and adoption of innovative low impact materials and solutions to deliver a more sustainable built environment in the 21st Century. " Bath University lead. I am on the Management Board.
"Finite deformation geomechanics: developing a meshless scaled boundary method". 2007-10.
EPSRC funded project on which I was PI and Roger Crouch was CI. 2007-2010. Research Associate was Dr Claire Heaney. Details.
Earthen Construction and Rammed earth
... in collaboration with Chris Gerrard, Dept of Archaeology, Durham University. Details
"Mechanics of unsaturated soils for engineering" (MUSE) Marie Curie Training network, 2005-8.
I was the network Training Supervisor. Details.

Ph.D. Students (& topics)

(as main supervisor; as second supervisor)

Past

Claus Wisser (DPhil, Oxford, 2002): FE modelling of tunnelling.
Dimos Koungelis (2007): FE modelling of tunnelling.
Paul Jaquin (2008): Rammed earth. Thesis available here.
Xiaoying Zhuang (2010): Meshless methods. Read her thesis at the Durham eTheses archive here.
Joao Mendes (2011): Unsaturated soil mechanics. Read his thesis at the Durham eTheses archive here.
Will Coombs (2011): Computational geotechnics. Read his thesis at the Durham eTheses archive here.
Chris Beckett (2011): Earthen construction materials. Read his thesis at the Durham eTheses archive here.

Current

Jack Barnard (Oct 2009 - ): the numerical bit of ROBUST.
Zahur Ullah (Oct 2009 - ): Meshless methods.
Joe Smith: (Oct 2011 - ): Earthen construction materials.
Gareth Bird (Jan 2007- ) Boundary element methods with Jon Trevelyan
Rachel Ashworth (Jul 2009 - ) FE modelling of spinning
Ibrahim Alatawi (Feb 2012 -) Boundary element methods with Jon Trevelyan

Journals

(I have reviewed papers for those starred)

Conferences

EUNSAT 2012, June 2012, Naples.
ESMC2012, 8th European Solid Mechanics Conference, July 2012, Graz, Austria.
WCCM2012, 10th World Congress on Computational Mechanics, Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 2012.
CM13, Computational Mechanics: An International Conference 2013, 25-27 March 2013. Durham University, UK.

Presentations (Please don't use these in whole or part without asking me.)

Poster for Celebrating Excellence meeting, Durham University, 2/3/11
Dept of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 20/09/10. "Working with meshless methods: findings and challenges".	(5Mb)
Association of Computational Mechanics UK meeting, Southampton, 31/03/10. "A tying procedure for crack tip closure in fracture modelling using a meshless method and level sets". largely the handiwork of Xiaoying Zhuang, and my first venture into beamer.
Workshop on numerical modelling in geomechanics, Newcastle, 24/4/09. "Future alternatives to finite elements for geotechnical modelling".

Teaching

From August 2010 I have had a 50% role as Faculty of Science Deputy (Postrgraduate) so have a reduced teaching load.
Courses I have taught recently are as follows.

L2 Structures
L3 Structural Analysis
L3 CAD for Civil Engineers
L4 Civil Engineering Modelling
Final year projects supervised at Durham.

In past years I have taught, L1 Technology for the Modern World, L1 Structures, L3 Stress Analysis, L3 Surveying, L3 Soil Mechanics, L4 Geotechnical Engineering ...

Outside Durham I contribute to the UK courses on Computational Geotechnics run by Plaxis.

Durham colleagues

People I work with (past & present & future?)

Information

Organisations

The Institution of Civil Engineers
The British Geotechnical Association
The Northern Geotechnical Group (NGG)
Earth Building UK - I am one of the directors. On Facebook

Miscellaneous

Hatfield College (where I was a College Tutor up to October 2011). A list of tutees.