15 Jul 2015
Loughborough University student wins award for Engineering innovation
Alister Smith, from Loughborough University, has received the prestigious Hawley Award for Engineering Innovation.
Alister, a PhD student from the University’s School of Civil and Building Engineering, was honoured for his work on acoustic emission monitoring for landslide early warning.
His work has produced a means of early warning of landslides through detecting accelerations of slope movement, continuously and in real-time, by quantifying slope deformation behaviour using acoustic emission monitoring. Field trials in the UK, Italy and Canada have been successful and discussions have started to commercialise the approach.
His work has also made a significant contribution to the ALARMS (Assessment of Landslides using Acoustic Real-time Monitoring Systems) project, which is led by Professor Neil Dixon at the University.
The acoustic emission monitoring and warning system was developed in a collaboration between Loughborough University and the British Geological Survey. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and the Loughborough University Graduate School funded Alister’s doctoral research.
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