Consulting: Structures and Infrastructure Protection Group
The structures group is highly regarded in the building and construction industry. The group carries out consulting in specialist areas of structural system performance, either through direct consulting, applied research, or as a sub-consultant providing expert advice within a large project.
The group offers specialist consulting services in the following areas:
- Serviceability Assessment of Floor Support Systems
- Condition Assessment of Bridges
- Earthquake Engineering
- Vulnerability of Structures to Blast, Impact and Fire
- High Strength Concrete
- Tall Buildings
- Hydrodynamic Loading Effects on Offshore Structures
Specific contacts for each of the areas listed above are provided with the linked information. For general consulting enquiries please contact:
Assoc Prof Nicholas Haritos
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
The University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010 Australia
T: +61 3 8344-6829
F: +61 3 8344-4616
E: nharitos@unimelb.edu.au
Serviceability Assessment of Floor Support Systems
The structures group has expertise in the modelling and testing of floor support systems subjected to human-induced excitation. Consultancies that the group has carried out include:
- Identification of dynamic characteristics of grandstand support structures
- Evaluation of human-induced vibration response levels in floor systems at various stages of fit-out
- Dynamic performance assessment of novel floor systems under varying levels of live load
Contact
Assoc Prof Nicholas Haritos or Assoc Prof John Wilson
Condition Assessment of Bridges
The structures group offers testing and modelling services for the condition assessment of bridge structures. These include:
- Finite Element Modelling
- Experimental Modal Analysis testing
- Static Testing
- Plastic Collapse/Yield Line Analysis (as applicable)
Contact
Earthquake Engineering
The structures group offers world class consulting service in the seismic safety assessment of existing infrastructure as well as the seismic design of new structures. These include:
- seismic performance assessment of building Ssystems
- seismic performance assessment of major highway structures
- seismic performance assessment of reservoir outlet towers
- development of seismic risk assessment models
Contact
Assoc Prof John Wilson or Dr Nelson Lam
Vulnerability of Structures to Blast, Impact and Fire
Advanced Protective Technology for Engineering Structures group (APTES) within the structures group has wide ranging experience in design and analysis of structures subjected to blast, impact and fire. The structures include buildings, bridges, protective barriers, blast walls.
Contact
Assoc Prof Priyan Mendis or Tuan Ngo
High-strength Concrete
Concrete codes around the world (including AS3600-2001) cover only design of normal strength concrete members. The structures group is involved in providing consulting services to many companies involved in design of very high-strength concrete members (up to 150 MPa).
Contact
Tall Buildings
The structures group has vast experience in design of tall buildings. Areas of expertise include advanced modeling including non-linear finite element analysis, wind and seismic design, axial shortening of columns and design of concrete core structures.
Contact
Assoc Prof Priyan Mendis or Assoc Prof John Wilson
Hydrodynamic Loading Effects on Offshore Structures
The structures group has expertise in environmental loading effects on offshore structures. Examples of consultancies that the group has carried out include:
- assessing the influence of wave runup on large caisson structures
- beacon pile response from wave excitation
- the influence of vessel-induced wave loading on pile structures