PhD scholarships are available for prospective applicants interested on HFDEM

PhD Project 1:  Offshore pile driving in chalk and calcarenite using a hybrid continuous-discontinuous method

Offshore piles remain as one of the most common foundations of offshore structures such as offshore wind farms for renewable energies. Up to 10 m diameter monopiles are being used as foundations for wind turbines installed in chalk or calcarenite soils in seabed. Chalk and calcarenite soils are problematic, whose strength varies significantly during pile driving compared with that of traditional soils and rocks. Moreover, there is currently limited guidance regarding the installation of large diameter piles in such weak rock and/or very hard soils. The crushing around the pile end especially requires more rigorous investigation. Developing a better understanding of driving piles in weak rock has the potential to allow significant optimisation of pile design and reduce installation risks and costs. This project aims to model pile driving by the state of the art hybrid finite-discrete element method (HFDEM) parallelized on the basis of general-purpose graphic-processing-units (GPGPU) using compute unified device architecture (CUDA) C/C++. This allows large deformation as well as crushing of chalk and calcarenite to be simulated. Successful PhD candidates are to be rewarded additionally with the opportunity of collaborating Dr Daisuke Fukuda in Hokkaido University in Japan in terms of further developing and parallelizing HFDEM as well as A/Prof Yinghui Tian at University of Melbourne and Dr Tingfa Liu at University of Bristol in term of investigating the crushing behaviour of chalk and calcarenite. Please click the following link for more information about the PhD scholarship: https://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-projects/projects/engineering/pile-driving-in-chalk-and-calcarenite 

PhD Project 2:  Hybrid finite-discrete element model for dynamic fracture of rocks under impact loads and resultant fragment debris flow

The prediction of the dynamic fracture of brittle materials such as rock and concrete is of major importance in engineering and materials science since it is involved in a wide range of applications, which include the design of safe and resilient structures exposed to impact, explosive loading or crash events; the optimisation of efficient and reliable rock drilling and blasting techniques for accessing deep underground; and the development of protective and durable materials. In recent decades, a huge effort was made to develop novel, efficient and accurate computational methods for investigating the fracture. Although an enormous progress has been made, the dynamic fracture induced by impact loads is worthy of further studies. This project continues the efforts of the computational geomechanics team led by Dr Hongyuan Liu in developing a hybrid finite-discrete element method and parallelizing it on the basis of heterogeneous CPU and GPU parallel computation as an innovative and efficient numerical tool for investigating the dynamic fracture of brittle materials under impact loads. Digital twins of unconfined and confined split Hopkinson pressure bar testing apparatus are first established using the hybrid finite-discrete element method to investigate the dynamic fracture of rocks under impact loads. The project will then investigate rock fragmentation by blast in deep underground with high in-situ stress and resultant fragment debris and mixing behaviours in subsequent transferring points. Successful PhD candidates are to be rewarded additionally with the opportunity of collaborating Dr Daisuke Fukuda in Hokkaido University Japan for further developing and parallelizing the hybrid finite-discrete element method and Dr Ewan Sellers and Dr Ebrahim Fathi Salmi at CSIRO for practical engineering applications. Please click the following link for more information about the PhD scholarship: https://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-projects/accordion-projects/science-technology-and-engineering/area/engineering/novel-model-for-rock-dynamic-fracture

PhD Project 3: Multiphysics hybrid finite-discrete element method for calving of ice shelves

The mass loss of Antarctic ice shelves will govern whether global sea levels rise 1.1 m by 2100 or 15 m by 2500. The fracture and calving process of icebergs accounts for almost 50% of mass lost from the Antarctic ice shelves. Thus, accurate representation of the fracture and calving process of the icebergs is the key to reduce uncertainties in the prediction of future sea level rise. However, it remains elusive and current predictions are based on simplified physics and do not reflect local stress – fracture interactions. The application of discrete element models has represented a substantial advance by allowing iceberg calving processes to be simulated explicitly but is prohibitively computational expensive when applied to the large spatial and timescales of Multiphysics thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling Antarctic iceberg calving. This project looks to revolutionise our ability to accurately predict the fracture and calving process of the Antarctic icebergs using a novel hybrid finite-discrete element method (HFDEM) through implementing a THM coupling model. The coupling model will first be calibrated against laboratory experiments on the deformation and fracture of ice samples conducted at Ice Mechanics Lab of IMAS and then be applied to the fracture and calving process of Totten Glacier and Denman Glacier in East Antarctica. Numerical modellings will focus on reproducing current spatial distribution of fracture on the ice shelves, then progress to simulate the change in modelled fracture distribution as the ice shelves thin and retreat under future global warming scenarios. This project builds on a substantial body of work by Dr Hongyuan Liu’s team in developing and parallelizing HFDEM as an innovative and efficient numerical tool to model the fracture process of brittle materials and involves in collaborations with Dr Sue Cook at IMAS and Prof Matt King at ARC Centre of Excellence on Antarctic Science. Please click the following link for more information about the PhD scholarship: https://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-projects/accordion-projects/science-technology-and-engineering/area/engineering/multiphysics-hfdem-for-calving-of-ice-shelves 

Dr Liu made a presentation for Global FDEM Workshop 2022 - Building the Future of FDEM upon the invitation of Prof Grasselli at University of Toronto 

Title of the presentation: Y-HFDEM IDE2D/3D - a unique implementation of the combined finite-discrete element method based on GPGPU parallelisation for modelling dynamic fracture of rocks

Dr Liu made a keynote presentation at Australian Geomechanics Society Tasmanian Symposium 2022

Title of the presentation: HFDEM - a unique implementation of the combined finite-discrete element method for modelling geostructure collapse and resultant debris flow

Dr Liu is appointed as the Editorial Board Member of Underground Space (IF: 5.327)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/underground-space/about/editorial-board 

Dr Liu was appointed as the Guest Editor of the Special issue of Fracture and Failure of Jointed Rock Mass: open for submission from 8 March 2022 to 20 August 2022

Please consider to submit a paper to the special issue of Applied Science if interested: 

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Jointed_Rock_Mass 

Presentation for ICSMGE2022 to be hosted in Sydney on 1-5 May 2022

Hong attended the 20th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ICSMGE2022) held in Sydney on 1-5 May 2022 and made the presentation "Development and application of a hybrid finite-discrete element method for modelling geo-structure collapse and resultant debris flow". 

Dr Liu was appointed as the Topic Editor of the Research Topics "Geological Disasters and its Prevention in Deep Mining" of Frontiers in Earth Science

Please consider to submit a paper to the Research Topics if interested: 

https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/34613/geological-disasters-and-its-prevention-in-deep-mining#overview 

Dr Liu delivered Mechsoft Lecture on 8 Dec 2021

Upon the invitation of Prof Chun'an Tang at Dalian University of Technology and Mechsoft in China, Dr Hongyuan Liu gave a lecture on the development and application of a hybrid finite-discrete element method for modelling rock fracture, fragmentation and debris flow on Wednesday 8 December 2021. More than 300 postgraduate students and researchers attended the lecture. Q & A after the lecture lasted more than one hour. The recording of this lecture is available at Bilibili by clicking the following link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Hr4y1X7Qd?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0 

Hong served as a session chair and delivered a presentation at SIF2021 on 7 Dec 2021

Dr Hongyuan Liu delivered a presentation "HFDEM: a hybrid finite-discrete element method for failure analysis of rock structures under static and dynamic loads" in the 12th International Conference on Structural Integrity and Failure hosted by Australian Fracture Group and Monash University on 6-7 December 2021. Part of Hong's presentation is selected to be published in a special issue of Engineering Failure Analysis. Hong also served as the Chair of Session 5 - Fracture 1. 

Presentation at ARMS2021 and Excellent Paper Award

Dr Hongyuan Liu virtually attended the 11th Asian Rock Mechanics Symposium (ARMS11) and presented a paper "development and application of a three-dimensional GPGPU-parallelized FDEM for modelling rock fragmentation by blast" on behalf of his group. The paper has been awarded Excellent Paper Award by ARMS11. 

Best PhD Thesis Prize by Australian Geomechanics Society (2020)

The PhD thesis "Advanced FDEM modelling of rock fracture process and applications in rock cutting" was awarded Best PhD Thesis Prize by Tasmanian Chapter of Australian Geomechanics Society. The PhD thesis was completed by Dr Mojtaba Mohammadnejad under the supervision of Dr Hongyuan Liu as the primary supervisor and Dr Sevda Dehkhoda at CSIRO and Prof. Andrew Chan as the co-supervisors. 

Dr Liu is appointed as the Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences (IF: 6.849)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/international-journal-of-rock-mechanics-and-mining-sciences/about/editorial-board 

Excellent Paper Award (Only one in the whole conference) at ISRM2019 Specialized Conference YSRM2019 & REIF2019 in Dec 2019

The paper "Recent development and application of hybrid finite-discrete element simulator for rock failure process" was awarded the Excellent Paper Award by the 5th ISRM Young Scholars' Symposium on Rock Mechanics and International Symposium on Rock Engineering for Innovative Future held in Okinawa Japan on 1-4 December 2019. The paper is co-authored by Dr Daisuke Fukuda, Mr Mojtaba Mohammadneja, Dr Hongyuan Liu, Mr Haoyu Han, A/Prof Junichi Kodama and Prof Yoshiaki Fujii. Hong's group submitted 4 papers to the conference. 

Hong was apointed as the Conference Co-chair by Australasian Association for Computational Mechanics to host the 4th Australasian Conference on Computational Mechanics at University of Tasmania, 28-29 November 2019

Official site at University of Tasmania: https://www.utas.edu.au/accm-2019 

Official site at EasyChair: https://easychair.org/cfp/ACCM-2019 

Here are the conference handbook and the full-text of the conference proceedings

Dr Hongyuan Liu also hosted the pre-conference workshop on Computational Hardrock Mechanics and delivered a keynote speech on development and application of hybrid finite-discrete element method during the pre-conference workshop

Hong was invited to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China due to hosting a number of visiting academics and PhD students from various Chinese universities funded by China Scholarship Council and Double First Class Scholarships at his research group

Hong was appointed as the Conference Chair by Australian Geomechanics Society to host the 12th Australia and New Zealand Young Geotechnical Professionals Conference in Hobart, 6-9 November 2018

Organising Committee: Dr Hongyuan Liu (University of Tasmania), Mr Nigel Ruxton (Golder Associates), Ms Philippa Mills (Coffey, New Zealand) and Mr Colin Mazengarb (Tasmanian Government)

Steering Committee: Australian Geomechanics Society National Committee

AGS official site: https://australiangeomechanics.org/12225/12th-anz-young-geotechnical-professionals-conference/ 

NZGS official site: https://www.nzgs.org/12th-anz-young-geotechnical-professionals-conference/ 

Here are the conference proceedings programme and abstract, the full-text of the conference proceedings and the post-conference report