Dr Zhiwei Gao, University of Glasgow / Subsea 7

Industrial Fellowships 2024

Dr Zhiwei Gao is a Senior Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering at the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow. This Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellowship looks at their main research interest, the constitutive modelling of soils. 

Pipelines laid on the seabed in a snake configuration or straight line are widely used for transporting fluids under high pressure or high temperature. The safety and reliability of pipelines require robust deformation management during the design. This Industrial Fellowship supported project, working with Subsea 7, aims to bridge the gap between academia and industry by developing and implementing a robust pipeline–soil interaction modelling method that is suitable for modelling pipeline-soil interaction (PSI) at large deformation. The project will propose and implement novel techniques for dealing with numerical errors and integrate a design approach to the finite element modelling. 

Dr Gao has developed constitutive models for sand anisotropy and used them in finite element modelling of practical boundary value problems. The research has shown that anisotropy, the difference in the physical property of a certain material when measured along different axes, can cause strain localisation. This implies that anisotropy should be considered in calculating the bearing capacity of shallow foundations. Dr Gao has also developed a new composite method for the constitutive modelling fine-grained soils containing discrete gas bubbles (gassy clay). They have been the Principal Investigator of several projects funded by the UKRI, Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering and the industry. 

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