Structural Applications

The Structural Applications group has developed 3D high-speed speckle strain mapping and other strain visualisation techniques for assessment of the safety of engineering structures. These techniques have been applied, for example, to explosive blast research of building façade structures and the techniques have been adopted by the Home Office, Arup and others for risk assessment of the terrorist threats to buildings and vehicles. The group currently advises the UK Ministry of Defence on the application of these techniques to structures and materials. These high-speed speckle strain mapping techniques have also been successfully applied to develop blast resilient composite structures for the US Office of Naval Research - ONR (US Navy).

Topics of interest are impact and blast performance of laminated glass and composite structures for aerospace, transport and civil applications, creep life of materials in power-station plant, life-time evaluation of water and gas distribution systems and high-strain rate properties of materials for defence applications and also for medical research.