UKCRIC - PLEXUS - Priming Laboratory EXperiments on infrastructure and Urban Systems

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Other)
Not Energy Related

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Civil Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor CDF Rogers
Infra. Engineering & Management
University of Birmingham

Standard

EPSRC

01 January 2018

28 February 2021

38 months

£1,013,092

Civil eng. & built environment

West Midlands

UKCRIC

Professor CDF Rogers, Infra. Engineering & Management, University of Birmingham

Professor L Black, Civil Engineering, University of Leeds
Professor P Carrillo, Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University
Professor NJ Cassidy, Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham
Dr D Chapman, Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham
Dr F De Luca, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol
Professor N Dixon, Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University
Professor S Glendinning, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University
Dr CI Goodier, Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University
Professor SD Guest, Engineering, University of Cambridge
Professor P Jarvis, School of Water, Energy and Environmen, Cranfield University
Dr B Jefferson, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University
Dr I Jefferson, Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham
Dr P Jeffrey, School of Applied Sciences, Cranfield University
Dr N Koteyko, School of Languages Linguistics and Film, Queen Mary University of London
Professor Q Li, Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester
Dr FA Loveridge, Civil Engineering, University of Leeds
Dr N Metje, Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham
Professor G Mylonakis, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol
Professor T Papaioannou, Faculty of Arts and Social Sci (FASS), Open University
Professor W Powrie, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton
Dr S Rees, Civil Engineering, University of Leeds
Dr DJ Richards, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton
Dr A Schellart, Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield
Dr J Schooling, Engineering, University of Cambridge
Dr A Sextos, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol
Dr P Shepley, Civil and Structural Engineering, University of Sheffield
Dr JA Smethurst, Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton
Dr RA Stirling, Sch of Engineering, Newcastle University
Dr DMG Taborda, Civil and Environmental Eng, Imperial College London
Professor S Tait, Sch of Engineering Design and Technology, University of Bradford
Professor CA Taylor, Civil Engineering, University of Bristol
Dr R Villa, School of Water, Energy and Environmen, Cranfield University
Professor Y Wang, Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Manchester

The UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) is, with a (matched) capital investment of 138m from BEIS, creating world-class city observatory, modelling & simulation and physical laboratory facilities. The UKCRIC Laboratories will form the state-of-the-art, world class, national research infrastructure that UK academic researchers and infrastructure providers need if they are to deliver world leading infrastructure provision and performance. UKCRIC's overall mission is to move away from the traditional, somewhat siloed, academic and industry viewpoints, which all stakeholders now increasingly recognise is a major barrier to innovation and to the radical changes in infrastructure provision practice that are needed to tackle the huge scale of the UK and global infrastructure renewal challenge.This proposal from UKCRIC's Laboratories Strand aims to prepare for and use UKCRIC's laboratory facilities for the ultimate purpose of developing UKCRIC's research staff capacity & capability, and create a Common Vision, Strategic Research Agenda & Implementation Action Plan for the Laboratories Strand via three expansive yet interlinked critical technical challenges.It meets EPSRC's objectives of encouraging new collaborations; demonstrating cross institution-theme-facility working central to the UKCRIC vision; contributing to the benefits as set out in the UKCRIC Business Case; & delivering research aligning with the outcomes from UKCRIC's workshops.Three important and urgent technical challenges will contextualise the research:(1) intense physical interdependency of urban infrastructure systems, each of which relies on ground support;(2) harvesting energy from buried infrastructure systems; and,(3) accelerated deterioration of infrastructure materials due to extreme loading.The challenges are synergistic, having been identified by industry as high added-value problems offering quick-win outcomes.Exploration of these challenge will inform learning capture and be translated into the Vision, Research Agenda & Implementation Action Plan.PLEXUS will enable academics and industry stakeholders to co-produce and test the essential collaborative frameworks that will underpin the success of the overall UKCRIC enterprise. This integrated view will help drive progress towards the more integrated and holistic sector mindset that must underpin transformative thinking and practice in infrastructure provision.

15/03/19