News Archive

Eighty guests celebrated the 20th anniversary of COFS' (Centre for Offshore Foundation System) beam centrifuge project on April 3.

Among the attendants were UWA Vice Chancellor Alan Robson, Deputy Vice Chancellor Doug McEachern, the Faculty Dean David Smith and the Head of the School of Civil and Resource Engineering, Andrew Deeks.

Guests came from both national and international universities (Singapore and Netherlands). There were also a number of guests from industry. The participants were honoured with the presence of Professor Richard Jewell who, together with Federation Fellow Professor Mark Randolph, established COFS in 1997.

COFS houses the only centrifuge modeling facility in Australia. Its laboratory facilities feature sophisticated research-level devices for conducting the specialised laboratory and model testing needed to characterise conventional and carbonate sediments and to investigate soil structure interaction:

• Fixed beam centrifuge: 40g-tonne capacity with 1.8m radius platform
• Drum centrifuge: 1.2m diameter and 500g capacity with precision-controlled turntable
• A modern well-equipped laboratory for computer-controlled triaxial, simple shear, and constant normal stiffness interface testing
• Optical and electron microscopes, x-ray and high-speed camera equipment for studies of soil fabric and damage mechanics
• Novel site investigation equipments, including T-bar and spherical penetrometers and piezocones

Dr Christophe Gaudin, who has been managing the centrifuge group for the past six years, when asked about the greatest achievement of the group over the last 20 years, replied: "There are two aspects of our success: the academic achievements and the service to industry. We have been involved in all the major pipeline developments off the North West Coast and this is what I would call our highest industrial achievement.

The best academic achievement was being recognised at the 6th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG) in Hong Kong in 2006 for being one of the most active research groups in the field, producing the highest number of publications.

It was the most prestigious recognition for us, as the ICPMG is the biggest event in the field and it takes place once every four years."

Asked about the future of the centrifuge project, Christophe said: "Our research is based on building a strong relationship with industry. That is why we are involved in both short term and long term industry research projects through direct collaboration or through the ARC Linkage Project scheme. The main companies we collaborate with are: Woodside, Chevron, BP, BMT Asia Pacific, and Advanced Geomecahnics. As a result, awareness of the benefits of the centrifuge project is constantly growing. That's why the prospects for our group are looking really promising"

For further information about the centrifuge project go to the website .