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Civil and Environmental Engineering Research and Consultancies

The discipline of Civil and Environmental Engineering at James Cook University fosters research that is pertinent to the tropical environment, along with strong fundamental research. Major research interests that have been derived from local regional issues include: wind engineering directed at the effects of high wind on structures; environmental fluid mechanics; tropical rainforest infrastructure; geotechnical investigations of mine stability; and systems engineering, optimisation and ground water modeling.

The School of Engineering and Physical Sciences has excellent research laboratories in the following areas: wind engineering; concrete, geomechanics, fluid mechanics and hydraulics; materials testing and structural laboratories; and an analytical environmental laboratory.

Key areas of research and consultancy include:

  • Geomechanics and Mining Engineering including slope stability in tropical environments; strengths and compressibility of clays; land reclamation and dredging, and geotechnical characterisation of minefills.

A/Prof Nagaratnam Sivakugan

  • Structural engineering including sustainable concrete structures for tropical environment; durability of concrete structures; innovative construction materials; seismic hazard mitigation; and soil-pile/structure interaction.

Dr. Rabin Tuladhar

  • Wind engineering including full scale house testing, wind loads on structures and wind tunnel model studies.Cyclone Testing Station

Dr John Ginger

  • Water Resources System Engineering including reservoir operation, surface and groundwater quality and quantity management, optimal pollution monitoring network design and pollution source identification.

Dr Bithin Datta

  • Structural Engineering including uncertainty quantification (UQ) for civil structures, structural health monitoring (SHM), structures under extreme loading conditions, sustainable structures, and performance based structural design methodologies.

Dr Vincent Wang

  • Fish Passage Planning and Design provides professional services in planning and design for fish passage and aquatic fauna connectivity at small waterway structures. eg. road culverts

Mr Ross Kapitzke

Further information:

A/Professor N. (Siva) Sivakugan

Discipline of Civil & Environmental Engineering

School of Engineering and Physical Sciences

James Cook University
Townsville
Queensland 4811
Australia
Telephone: (61 7) 4781 4431
Facsimile: (61 7) 4781 6788
Email: Siva.Sivakugan@jcu.edu.au