Society worldwide is more exposed to seismic hazards due to rapid population growth and urbanization. Since the turn of the millennium, fatalities due to earthquakes were over 60,000/year, with a $300 billion/year estimated direct economic loss. Recent major earthquakes (China 2008, Haiti 2010, Lorca 2011, Japan 2012, Nepal 2015) have highlighted yet again the vulnerability of the existing substandard building stock in Europe as well as in developing countries, mainly due to inappropriate design and poor construction practices. Although new technologies, such as Fibre Reinforced Polymers (FRP), are effective for strengthening substandard structures, their high material cost is an obstacle for their widespread application, especially in developing countries. This project aims to develop an innovative and economic strengthening solution by using a novel mortar-based composite (R-SRG), which comprises of recycled high strength steel cords, by-product of tyre recycling, embedded in an inorganic grout matrix. This novel technique can be efficiently used for flexural, axial and shear strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) members and it is cost effective (more than 40% cheaper than using FRP), fire resistant, sustainable, and has low environmental impact. While proof of concept studies by the applicant have demonstrated the efficiency of the SRG technique, this project bridges the knowledge gap by developing fundamental understanding, design-oriented models and performance-based design guidelines so that this new technique can be introduced in practice. The outcomes of this project will lead to a new generation of low-cost and efficient retrofitting systems for deteriorated or seismically deficient structures with high impact on both economy and society.

Traditional methods of airframe assembly are manually-intensive and inefficient. After components are placed together and drilled, they are disassembled, inspected and reworked before being reassembled and joined with fasteners. This is due to assembly fit-up, materials and dynamics, along with quality and rate requirements, making hole generation challenging. This project will develop a scaled-down test-rig, which can mimic dynamics of production assemblies, and techniques for inferring hole quality from in-process data. Outputs will facilitate hole generation testing and hole verification using in-process data. This will enable adoption of assembly processes without intermediate disassembly, drastically improving aircraft assembly efficiency.

There are large differences in life expectancy and the burden of ill health across the UK, both geographically and between different socioeconomic groups. In order to address health inequalities resources must be directed towards policies and programmes that not only improve health overall, but that also reduce the health gap. One of the difficulties for decision makers, however, is that they often do not know what impact a proposed programme will have on health inequalities, or indeed on overall health. This is a particular problem when the proposed programme is complex, an example being the current School Travel Plan initiative. This particular programme has many potential effects on health, both positive and negative, and these may differ in different areas and in different populations. One approach to predicting the costs and health effects of a health promoting programme is through health economic modelling. These mathematical models attempt to replicate the real world in a simplified fashion, combining evidence from diverse sources in order to estimate the outcome of a proposed course of action. This project aims to develop such a model for the school travel plan programme in order to estimate costs, health consequences and the impact on health inequality.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.