Geology and geotechnics

The research and education within the division is focused on geotechnical engineering, engineering geology and urban mobility. These very broad research fields include characteristics of soft soils and cementitious geomaterials, geotechnical engineering, foundation engineering, groundwater flow, drinking water supply, remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater, underground construction, subsurface planning, urban mobility and planning of roads and traffic systems.

Research

The division consists of three research groups:

Engineering geology

The Engineering geology research group studies effects on humans, the environment, and technical systems in underground construction, drinking water supply, land development in contaminated areas and underground planning. The focus is mainly on advanced methods and tools for hydrogeological and geological data analysis, risk assessment, and decision support methods for risk management. The Engineering geology group has an extensive collaboration with international partners, industry, and authorities.

Geotechnics

The Geotechnics research focuses on characterisation and modelling of complex geomaterials, such as natural and stabilised soils. The research activities aim to bridge fundamental understanding and advanced modelling & testing capabilities with application in engineering practice. Our work on experimental testing and modelling at laboratory and field scale is internationally recognised, and thus we are active members in the ALERT Geomaterials network and many international committees.

The group has unique laboratory facilities to study the hydromechanical response of geomaterials in climate-controlled conditions, as well as computational facilities incorporating the latest software developments for computational work. In addition, we exploit special beamline facilities, such as at MAXIV in Lund and ESRF in Grenoble. Most of our work is directly linked with the activities of Digital Twin Cities Centre at Chalmers.

Urban Mobility Systems

The Urban Mobility Systems research group focuses on traffic management, infrastructure planning, network optimization, emerging technologies/solutions and system assessments to maximize the efficiency, safety, sustainability and equity of transport infrastructure and operations. In particular, the research group has been working on research through reciprocal collaborations with multiple industry partners and other research institutions, to establish new approaches and tools for system planning, optimization and evaluation of emerging transport technologies including electric vehicles, connected and automated vehicles, shared mobility and Mobility-as-a-service, leveraging big data, operation research, control theories and machine learning. The overall research aim is to facilitate a safer, more sustainable and equitable transportation system from both system and users’ perspectives.

Utilisation

To find environmentally and technically sustainable solutions to engineering problems, the Division has close collaboration with stakeholders in the water, construction, and transport sectors. Collaboration across geographical regions and disciplines is the basis for our research and educational activities. The Division offers courses to practitioners in different topics, e.g., in soil modelling and statistical analysis of data for contaminated sites and has several industrial PhD-students.

Education

We give courses in our core areas at Bachelor, Master, as well as on PhD level. Below are the main courses on the Bachelor’s and Master’s level listed.