Crystal Xue has graduated from University College London, degree in Civil Engineering. Since October 2009, she has joined geotechnical research group in Cambridge towards a PhD degree. She is under supervision of Prof. Malcolm Bolton and is affiliated to Churchill College.

Research:

Deep excavations for new underground stations or basements induce soil movement, and this affects adjacent tunnels that may suffer damage or even catastrophic failure. Currently, the existing code of practice is arbitrary and there is no existing analytical method addressing the issue. To gain a better understanding of this soil-structural integration and the corresponding deformation mechanisms, research has been conducted using geotechnical centrifuge tests in lightly over-consolidated kaolin clay. Based on the mechanism observed from centrifuge tests, Mobilizable Strength Design (MSD) method is adopted to develop a straight forward calculation method for this issue.