Category Archives: Materials performance

HOWARD MEDAL AWARDED

As announced previously, we are very pleased and honoured to announce that on 6 October 2017 our Dr Andy Goodwin, Simon Ellis (Mott Macdonald), Prof Liz Laycock (Sheffield Hallam University) and Dr Chris Hurst (Mott MacDonald) were all awarded the Howard Medal by ICE Publishing for a paper jointly published in 2016.  The awards dinner was held at the ICE headquarters near Westminster. The happy recipients are shown below on stage, and both before and after perhaps a little too much champagne!

Entitled “Use of crushed brick in reinforced earth railway structures”, the paper was published in ICE’s Construction Materials Journal.  Targeted at improving the sustainability of the development, the work reported on a short practically-focused research project undertaken in association with Sheffield Hallam University with a clear focus on assessing the suitability of crushed bricks to be sourced from a viaduct for re-use as engineered fill.  It shows the benefits that can be gained from integrating focused research into a large project.  

More details of the project can be seen in the paper, which can be downloaded for free from http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/10.1680/coma.15.00014.  

CPD IDEAS…..

Over the last month or so our Dr Andy Goodwin has been posting ideas for CPD on LinkedIn.  The suggestions largely come from his experience as a lead reviewer with the ICE and are targeted in particular at graduates.  However, everyone benefits from CPD so don’t be put off the ideas if you are not a graduate.

Ideas suggested so far include:

  • The Brundtland report, “Our Common Future”:  this includes the oft-quoted definition of sustainable development “meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of tomorrow” (see page 16 para 27 of the pdf for the full definition “Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”).  Graduates pursuing professional qualification with the ICE should know this, and ought to read the report (or at least look over its 300 pages to get a sense of what it is all about).
  • Research and assessment of the issues that can arise when using pyrite-rich fills below buildings and in earthworks. Two references are provided as starters in this field. The first link takes you to a pdf copy of an expert report on issues found affecting buildings in Ireland – it is 200 pages long so if pushed for time just read the Executive Summary! The second is a paper from 2011 on the implications of the phenomenon for earthworks that explains the science aspects as well as being practical.
  • The subject of ethics and ethical behaviour regularly comes up both at ICE professional reviews and when Andy is mentoring graduates. It is an important topic that merits thought and deserves a perspective from outside the ICE, nut just from within.  It is suggested that it is worth looking at the Royal Academy of Engineering work on this topic.

Happy reading!

By the way, if you want to LinkIn with Andy yourself and catch up with his new posts as they are issued then feel free to invite him to join your network!

HOWARD MEDAL WINNER

We are very pleased and honoured to announce that a paper jointly published in 2016 by our Dr Andy Goodwin with Simon Ellis (Mott Macdonald), Liz Laycock (Sheffield Hallam University) and Chris Hurst (Mott MacDonald) has just been awarded the Howard Medal by ICE Publishing.  The paper, entitled “Use of crushed brick in reinforced earth railway structures”, was published in ICE’s Construction Materials Journal.  Targeted at improving the sustainability of the development, the work reported is based on a short practically-focused research project undertaken in association with Sheffield Hallam University with a clear focus on assessing the suitability of crushed bricks to be sourced from a viaduct for re-use as engineered fill.  It shows the benefits that can be gained from integrating focused research into a large project.  

More details of the project can be seen in the paper, which can be downloaded for free from http://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/10.1680/coma.15.00014.  All of the authors are looking forward to attending the Awards Ceremony in October 2017 and to receiving their medals!