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. Much of this work is developed through the Structural Safety and Performance Group at Monash University.
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.
Structural Safety and Performance Group
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 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.