Civil Engineering Departmental Seminar - Unsaturated Modelling Framework in the Assessment of Geotechnical Infrastructure
Unsaturated Modelling Framework in the Assessment of Geotechnical Infrastructure
The necessity to predict the consequences of atmospheric conditions on the stability of natural and cut slopes, infrastructure embankments and earth dams / tailings facilities is evident globally, from frequent examples of failures that often result in material and human losses. The serviceability conditions of this infrastructure are equally governed by environmental effects such as weather patterns and growing vegetation. The whole soil-atmosphere-vegetation interaction is therefore a complex transient process, hence the calculation tools cannot be overly simplified if realistic predictions are to be achieved. This lecture discusses elements of a viable and robust numerical modelling approach in the framework of unsaturated soil mechanics, and its application in the assessment of geotechnical infrastructure.
Lidija Zdravkovic is Professor of Computational Geomechanics at Imperial College London, where she has been an academic staff member since 1996, becoming full professor in 2013. She was Head of the Geotechnics division in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department for ten years, until 2024. Her research integrates soil characterisation and numerical modelling to assess geotechnical infrastructure, climate change impact, offshore foundations, energy geostructures and nuclear waste disposal, recently expanding her interests to data science and machine learning. She has consulted on several major infrastructure projects and is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. She has published over 250 technical papers and has been awarded prizes from the British Geotechnical Association (BGA) and the Institution of Civil Engineers, UK, and the 2019 Imperial College President’s Medal for Excellence in Education. She delivered the prestigious Rankine Lecture in March 2024 and has been the Géotechnique Editor-in-Chief since January 2024.