Robert is a chartered nuclear engineer, and a Microsoft
Certified Systems engineer.
He graduated from the University of Bath with a first class Honours
degree in building engineering during 1988 and worked briefly in
structural design before starting work with EQE carrying out seismic design and
analysis.
Since 1993 Robert has specialised in the analysis and
effects of soil dynamics and wave propagation. This has principally
utilised the CLASSI (Continuum Linear Analysis of
Soil Structure Interaction) technique developed by Wong and Luco.
During the last few years Robert has developed a number of
interfaces for programs like CLASSI and has also carried out numerous CLASSI
analyses for Nuclear Electric (now British Energy), Scottish Nuclear and BNFL.
These include nuclear reactors such as Hinkley A and Hunterston A, nuclear
processing facilities such as SIXEP and decommissioning of old plant such as
Chernobyl and B38.
Robert is also interested in rail vibrations and is working
closely with academics studying seismic performance, vibrations and soil
response. He has worked with these to use the CLASSI
technique to improve predictions of rail vibration effects on structures near to
railways. Interests includes rail vibrations at standard and high
speeds, above and below ground.
Chris is a Chartered Engineer being a
member of the Institution of Structural Engineers and the British Computer
Society. He graduated with an
Honours Degree from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1979.
Since 1982 he has worked as an engineering
analyst and designer in support of various industries where safety related
design is essential. These
include civil nuclear, offshore oil and gas, petrochemical and defence. In all cases the work has involved the necessity to
demonstrate that structures can withstand extreme hazard, accidental and
environmental loads. Such work
being necessary to support the Safety Case and in many instances to
demonstrate that critical consideration within the Safety Case are
satisfactorily met.
Seismic resistant engineering has formed a
large part of this work. He has
made extensive use of Soil Structure Interaction codes to provide the modified
seismic input to structures, which have then been analysed using large-scale
FE solvers such as ANSYS. In
addition to seismic loading, Chris has experience with fire, explosion, wind,
wave and temperature loading.
Chris has written several computer
programs to support the analytical tasks in which he has been involved, using
FORTRAN, ‘C’ and C++. He has
also been responsible for translating programs between operating systems and
hardware platforms.
Chris
is the author of many papers and is an active member of the UK based NAFEMS
organisation, which is concerned with the quality of FE analysis.