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Geotechnical and Environmental Research Group

 

Biography

Rod Lynch's research background was in chemistry and instrumentation science before moving into environmental geotechnics. After graduation in chemistry from Birmingham University in 1965, he researched solid state structures at Mullard Research Laboratories; oil additives at Esso Research; nuclear magnetic resonance and solid state structures at Warwick University where he obtained his PhD in spectroscopy. After teaching and instrumental research at Durham University he joined Philips / Pye Unicam as a project engineer on chemical instrument research and development, and eventually became Principal Scientist. In 1995 he joined the Geotechnical Group at CUED where he was Senior Technical Officer in environmental geotechnics until retirement in September 2011. He continues to collaborate with Dr Abir Al-Tabbaa and supervise 4th year project students at CUED.

Research

Previous environmental geotechnics  research topics:

Environmental geotechnics research topics included:

  • organic and inorganic pollutant plume tracking in kaolin using the minidrum centrifuge,
  • a fibre-optic pH sensor for groundwater monitoring,
  • electro-osmotic dewatering of clays,
  • a probe for detecting NAPL pollutants in soils,
  • remediation of contaminated land by electrokinetics,
  • the control of plumes in groundwater using airsparging,
  • preventing efflorescence in brickwork,
  • tracking of contaminants through landfill liners by  fibre-optic sensors,
  • from 1996 –2001, leader of the Sensors and Imaging Working Group of NECER, a European Union-funded network of geotechnical centrifuge users studying environmental projects.

Current Research

My research is focussed mainly on contaminated land issues, in particular the remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater:

  • in-situ groundwater clean-up using photocatalysis,
  • containment or exclusion of pollutants by an electrokinetic barrier,
  • studies of pollution plume breakthrough in soils using in-situ fibre-optic sensors,

Instrumentation

Avalanche detection (M Eng students: Henry Jeens, Melanie Chung, James Engwall, Amy Whitaker, Angela Laycock, Robin Firth, Ben Hamilton, Rob Clarke, Peter Kirkwood and Katie Salter).

The aim is to produce a simple device which is small enough to be carried by a skier or instructor, which can give a warning of the presence underneath the snow of a weak layer capable of causing a slab avalanche. Various mechanical and electronic devices have been built and tested. The latest two devices which show promising results have been tested in Canada (April 2011).

Publications

Key publications: 

Teaching and Supervisions

Teaching: 
  • Part IIB examiner (Projects).  Coordinator for civil, structural and environmental 4th year projects.
  • 4D14 Contaminated and and waste containment (chemistry)
  • 2010-11  supervised two MEng student projects, and two Erasmus exchange projects.
  • PhD Examiner: Cambridge: 8,  Cagliari, Italy:1; DTU Denmark: 1:
  • MPhil Examiner (Cambridge):1
FIBE CDT Course Director
Dr Rod  Lynch

Contact Details

Department of Engineering
Trumpington Street
Cambridge
CB2 1PZ
+44 (0)1223 332714

Affiliations

Classifications: 
Departments and institutes: