The flagship lecture of the Royal Academy of Engineering was presented by Professor Lord Mair, Head of CSIC, on 24 November and is now available to watch here.
Video:Professor Lord Mair, Hinton Lecture 2015
Lord Mair, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, CBE FRS, Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering and Head of Civil Engineering at the University of Cambridge, was introduced by Professor Dame Ann Dowling, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, who described the aim of the lecture as being “to inform and enlighten us on issues of great importance to engineering which have impact on society”.
Titled Creating Underground Infrastructure – the Role of Geotechnical Engineering, Lord Mair’s lecture demonstrates the size, technical challenges and complexity of modern underground construction by examining four key aspects:
- the importance of geology and the latest tunnelling techniques and innovations currently deployed at Crossrail, the largest civil engineering project in Europe
- the settlement effects of tunnelling, the prevention of damage to buildings and advances in compensating grouting
- the tunnelling effects on pile foundations - more tunnelling is going directly underneath piles supporting buildings making this relatively unknown area increasingly significant
- innovative fibre-optic and wireless sensor monitoring of underground infrastructure.
Lord Mair said: “Creating urban underground infrastructure is increasingly challenging and the Crossrail project is an excellent example of many innovations. Innovative fibre optic and wireless sensor monitoring offers huge potential and there are some wonderful future infrastructure projects facing us.”