Research
Research
My research blends fundamental work in probability and structural mechanics with translational, industry-partnered projects — keeping existing bridges safely and efficiently in service, and informing the codes that govern them.
Bridge Traffic Loading
How much load will a lifetime of traffic put on a bridge?
Explore the theme →Structural Reliability & Extremes
Deciding how safe is safe enough, with the numbers to back it.
Explore the theme →Structural Health Monitoring
Letting bridges tell us how they are really doing.
Explore the theme →Vibration Serviceability
Why lively footbridges move, and how much is too much.
Explore the theme →
Installing monitoring sensors beneath a highway bridge: research that travels from probability theory to the field.
Monash Smart Structures
The group
The research is the work of a team. Current PhD candidates and postdocs work across bridge loading, reliability, monitoring and footbridge dynamics, in the lab and on-site, supported by a strong group of alumni now across industry and academia.
Meet the group →Translation & impact
Selected projects
Working with road and rail authorities to apply reliability and monitoring in practice. Total research funding exceeds $6.5M.
Superload Movements for Loy Yang · 2018–2027
Designing, installing and maintaining the monitoring network for roughly annual movements of 570–640 t transformer/generator transports across six ageing bridges, advising the road authority on safe re-opening.
U-Trough Beam Reliability for Level Crossing Removal · 2023–24
Reliability-based refinement of the design rules for the widely-used U-Trough rail beam — extending usable spans, reducing piers and services relocation, and shaping the next generation of AS5100.
Heavy Vehicle Assessment & Permit System (HVSAPS / VAT) · 2015–
Software that automates structural bridge & culvert assessment for heavy-vehicle permits on Victorian roads, integrated with the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator — cutting approvals from months to days.
Heavy Load Moves Across West Victorian Bridges · 2019–21
Reliability assessment and remote monitoring of vital rural bridges enabling 600+ moves for the Southern Hemisphere’s largest wind farm to date.
Bridge Assessment Beyond AS5100 (AustRoads) · 2016–21
Structural-reliability assessment of a representative national bridge stock, proposing an extension of AS5100.7 assessment methodology — published as AustRoads guideline AP-R617-20.
Funding
Selected grants & contracts
Earlier projects — HeavyRoute, Traffic Microsimulation, BridgeTrafficLoadSim, SimBA — are preserved in the archive.