Dave Chan, PhD, PEng

Area of Study / Keywords

Geotechnical Centre Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering

Research

Research Interests

My general research interest is in the area of numerical methods for analysing soil mobility and in the development of constitutive models for geomaterials. The focus is on soil deformation and flowing characteristics. It encompasses very slow movement, such as creep or fast movement such as debris flow and avalanche. There are many practical problems which are in between these extreme classes.

I am interested in the development of new finite element and discrete element techniques for modelling large and small soil deformation. Past research include the development of creep model and techniques for analysing localization of deformation for shear zones. My research also covers constitutive modelling development of difficult soils such as collapsing soil and liquefiable materials.

Research Currently in Progress

• Development of constitutive models for debris flow.
• Debris flow analysis Development of energy based formulation for debris flow analysis.
• Numerical method development development of discrete finite element method.
• Material characteristic and numerical modelling of soil covers for solid waste management.
• Search for critical slip surface for three dimensional slope stability analysis - The purpose of this research is to develop a rigorous and practical method to solve three-dimensional slope stability. The shape, location, and factor of safety of the most critical slip surface will be determined by dynamic programming using stress conditions generated from a finite element stress analysis.