Professor Sarah Stallebrass

Overview

Professor Stallebrass collaborates with colleagues on research including physical and numerical modelling of construction processes in geotechnical engineering. The current focus of this work is innovative deep foundations and the behaviour of working platforms. Her personal expertise is in the constitutive modelling and numerical analysis of soils especially stiff clays and recently she has been carrying out fundamental studies on the disaggregation of soil cuttings in slurry.

Professor Stallebrass became a lecturer at City University in 1992 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1999 and to a Chair in Soil Mechanics in 2010. She was a member of the British Geotechnical Association Committee from 2004 becoming Chairman from 2009 until 2011. She remains a member of the ISSMGE Board Level committee on Innovation & Development.

Qualifications

• PhD Civil Engineering, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 1990
• MA (Hons) Engineering, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, 1987

Employment

• External Examiner (Civil Engineering Undergraduate Programmes), University of Glasgow, 2012 – present
• Professor of Soil Mechanics, City, University of London, 2010 – present
• Visiting Lecturer, King's College London, 2001 – present
• Senior Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering, City, University of London, 1999 – 2010
• Lecturer in Geotechnical Engineering, City, University of London, 1992 – 1999
• SERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, City, University of London, 1990 – 1992
• Graduate Engineer, Peter Fraenkel International, 1985 – 1987

Memberships of professional organisations

• Fellow, Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE), 2010 – present

Research interests

Developing constitutive models for stiff overconsolidated clays, sands and structured stiff clays.

Investigating the changes to clays during different construction processes such as pile excavation and installation and slurry tunnelling.

Implementing constitutive models for soil in finite element analysis programs and use of these models in complex numerical analyses to improve predictions of ground movements around construction and excavation in stiff soils.

Evaluating the finite element computations undertaken using the advanced constitutive models against centrifuge model tests.

Characterising and simulating the behaviour of natural soils with depositional fabric.

Collaborating with colleagues undertaking centrifuge model tests of complex construction processes. Particularly, using analytical methods or numerical analysis to provide insight into results obtained and to evaluate analysis methods.

Current and Recent Projects

Disaggregation of soils in slurries during tunnelling and pipe jacking
This project, which us currently in progress, is sponsored by the Pipe Jacking Association. The project is examining the process by which soil arisings from tunnel boring machines disaggregate whilst being pumped in a slurry to the surface separation plant. The aim is to be able to predict how much of the soil will become fines of a size which require the use of a centrifuge to separate them from the slurry fluid. An accurate prediction will enable contractors to estimate costs of separation plant more accurately. The project is also examining the fundamental physics of the disaggregation process and the effect of slurry fluid chemistry.

Remoulding of the Mercia Mudstone Group around Continuous Flight Auger Piles
A project sponsored by Balfour Beatty Ground Engineering in which four CFA pikes were installed in Ibstock Brick Pit in Leicestershire using different methods. The piles were subsequently exhumed with surrounding soil and the disturbance at the soil pile interface was logged and examined using a variety of mechanical and observational techniques.

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