Emeritus Professor Malcolm Bolton

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Churchill College
Available for consultancy
Emeritus Professor Malcolm Bolton

Contact

Location

  • Schofield Centre, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0EF

About

Professor Bolton is retired and is no longer accepting students.

Malcolm Bolton graduated in Engineering from Cambridge University in 1967 and subsequently took an MSc by research in structural engineering from Manchester University and a PhD in soil mechanics from Cambridge University. His career in geotechnical engineering started in Manchester (at UMIST) in 1969 where he helped Andrew Schofield to develop the UK’s first geotechnical centrifuge.  He became a Lecturer in 1970 and stayed a further 10 years at UMIST, publishing his book “A guide to Soil Mechanics” in 1979. He returned to Cambridge in 1980, ultimately becoming Professor of Soil Mechanics, Director of the Schofield Centre for Geotechnical Process and Construction Modelling, and Head of the Geotechnical and Environmental Group in the Department of Engineering. In accordance with University Statutes he retired in 2013.

He is the author of over 240 publications covering the fundamental mechanics of granular materials and a wide variety of civil engineering applications from tunnels through foundations, and from earthquake effects to landslide hazard reduction. He served on the drafting panel of the UK Code of Practice on Earth Retaining Structures, BS 8002 (1994), and on the Slope Stability Technical Review Board of the Hong Kong Government. Professor Bolton was founding chairman of ISSMGE TC105 “Geomechanics from Micro to Macro”, holding the post for 12 years. He was also the founding chairman of the International Press-In Association, concerned with new technology for jacked piles. Professor Bolton holds various prizes from the UK Institutions of Civil Engineers and Structural Engineers: a British Geotechnical Association Prize, a Telford Premium, the T K Hsieh Award (twice), an Oscar Faber Award, and the Sir Benjamin Baker silver medal. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering.

Professor Bolton gave the 52nd Rankine Lecture in London in 2012 with the title “Performance-Based Design in Geotechnical Engineering”, and gave the 1st Schofield Lecture entitled “Centrifuge Modelling: Expecting the Unexpected” to the 18th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering in Paris in 2013. He gave a valedictory lecture entitled "What can geotechnical engineers learn from granular mechanics?" at the International Symposium on Geomechanics from Micro to Macro, IS-Cambridge, in 2014.

 

Academic goal

To de-mystify soil mechanics and provide useful tools for prediction and decision-making by observing and comprehending mechanisms of behaviour, both of geo-materials and geo-systems.

Research

  1. Using Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) to clarify the behaviour of granular materials by relating the evolving deformability and strength of an assembly of grains to the elementary characteristics of a grain and of the assembly.
     
  2. Characterization of the non-linear stiffness and strength of soils in terms of easily measured parameters, by the statistical fitting of algebraic expressions to the data of published element tests.
     
  3. Using centrifuge model tests to clarify the behavioural mechanisms of geotechnical constructions – including shallow foundations, pipelines, piles, retaining walls, slopes, excavations and tunnels – during their construction, normal service, and exceptional loading.
     
  4. Developing Mobilizable Strength Design (MSD), by which the principle of the conservation of energy is applied to simplified deformation mechanisms so as to predict ground and structural distortions.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
  5. Applying MSD to case studies of field construction and loading for a variety of applications, to confirm its applicability through back-analyses, and to derive dimensionless charts for future design and decision-making.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
  6. By developing objective tools for the prediction of both the deformation and failure of geotechnical constructions, advocate performance-based design methods which can replace existing methods based on cautious estimates of soil strength and arbitrary safety factors.