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Professor William Powrie
Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment
University of Southampton
William Powrie is Professor of Geotechnical Engineering and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton. His main technical areas of expertise are in geotechnical aspects of transport infrastructure, and sustainable waste and resource management. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in recognition of his work in these areas in 2009.
William’s work on geotechnical aspects of transport infrastructure encompasses groundwater control, in-ground construction to reduce environmental impacts in urban and other sensitive areas, understanding and mitigating vegetation and climate change effects, and fundamental soil behaviour.
Major projects on which he has worked include the A55 Conwy Crossing, the Jubilee Line extension stations at Canary Wharf and Canada Water and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (now HS1). He is co-author of Construction Industry Research and Information (CIRIA) reports C515 Groundwater control – design and practice (2000) and C580 Embedded retaining walls – guidance for economic design (2003). Both of these, together with report C517 Temporary propping of deep excavations – guidance on design (1999), incorporate results of his research in these areas.
He was Principal Investigator for Rail Research UK (2003-2010), a Universities-based centre for Rail Systems Research, and now leads a prestigious EPSRC Programme Grant aiming to provide the science needed to underpin a radical overhaul in techniques for railway track design, construction and maintenance. He also leads the University's Strategic Research Partnership with Network Rail in Future Infrastructure Systems.
He is a former Associate Editor of the Canadian Geotechnical Journal, a former Honorary Editor of the Institution of Civil Engineers journal Geotechnical Engineering, and has been Geotechnical Consultant to WJ Groundwater Ltd since 1987.
William’s work in waste and resource management focuses on landfill engineering, and on the development of a sound scientific basis for policy and practice. He led a major EPSRC-funded programme of fundamental research, Science and Strategies for the Management of Residual Wastes, with the aim of enabling and encouraging landfill operation so as to accelerate biodegradation and stabilization of the waste. He was a co-author of the Institute of Wastes Management report on The role and operation of the flushing bioreactor.
He worked on the design and engineering risk assessment of the low level radioactive waste repositories at Drigg; and was founding Honorary Editor of the ICE journal Waste and Resource Management; a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Waste Working Group; and chair of the Technologies Advisory Committee for Defra’s £30m programme of research and demonstrator projects for new technologies for the treatment of biodegradable waste. He is the author of the widely respected and best-selling textbook, Soil mechanics – concepts and applications.
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Date
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4 JUNE 2013
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Time
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18:00 - 19:40
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Event Type
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Lecture
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James Forrest Lecture 2013
On track: the future for rail infrastructure systems
Speaker: Professor William Powrie, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton
Chairman: Barry Clarke, President, Institution of Civil Engineers
When Britain’s railways were privatised in the mid-1990’s, the general expectation was for a future of genteel decline. Nearly twenty years on, nothing could be further from the truth.
In the UK, the annual number of passenger journeys has risen to over 1 billion and freight has increased by 60% since 1995 – patterns of growth that have been replicated around the world.
With the world’s population increasingly living in cities, railways will have a vital future role to play in the key areas of urban mass rapid transport, providing fast links between cities, and making the relationship between a city and its hinterland work. At the same time, the industry faces the major challenges encapsulated in the 2007 DfT white paper Delivering a sustainable railway as the 4 C’s: Customers, Carbon, Capacity and Cost.
Infrastructure, which imposes significant operational constraints and in 2009/10 accounted for 25% of the UK rail network’s operating costs, will be a major factor in determining whether the railways of the future fulfill their potential and meet these targets. The lecture will discuss this, with reference to recent and current research.
Programme
18:00 - Registration and refreshments
18:30 - Welcome from the Chair
18:35 - Lecture
19:15 - Questions and discussion
19:35 - Summation from the Chair
19:40 - Close
Watch online
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Contact
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e events@ice.org.uk
Book online
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