Loughborough University gets £500,000 slope simulator grant

摘要

Loughborough University is to use a £500,000 grant from the Wolfson Foundation charity to create the world's first large-scale slope simulator. The human and economic cost of earthwork failures, such as slope failures and dam collapses, is significant. Landslides caused by earthquakes and heavy rainfall kill tens of thousands of people worldwide annually. They also damage infrastructure and cause severe disruption to critical water supplies and transport links. Ageing infrastructure, intensive use and environmental extremes caused by climate change all threaten to increase the scale and frequency of such disasters. But understanding of why and when earthwork failures occur is limited. There is currently no capability anywhere in the world to undertake simulations that would provide this information.