Durham researcher wins national Roger Owen Prize in Computational Mechanics

The prize recognises the best PhD thesis in computational mechanics in the UK and is awarded annually following a national competition.

Dr O’Hare received the award for his doctoral thesis, “Localisation in computational geomechanics: a nonlinear micropolar approach”, which presents an advanced computational framework to better understand localisation phenomena in geomaterials such as soils and rocks. These phenomena are central to predicting failure mechanisms in geotechnical systems and infrastructure. The research develops a nonlinear micropolar modelling approach that enables improved representation of strain localisation and deformation patterns in geomaterials.

The PhD research was supervised by Prof William Coombs and Prof Charles Augarde from Durham University’s Department of Engineering, together with Dr Panos Gourgiotis from the National Technical University of Athens.

As the Roger Owen Prize winner, Ted will represent the UK in the ECCOMAS Best PhD Thesis Competition, which recognises outstanding doctoral research across Europe in computational mechanics. The selection panel noted the high quality of submissions received this year, reflecting the strength of research in computational mechanics across the UK.

Further details of the announcement are available here.

Ted’s full PhD thesis can be accessed via the Durham University research repository here.

The Department of Engineering congratulates Ted on this outstanding achievement and wishes him every success in the upcoming European competition.