Seminar

Biography
Dr Wu is a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Wuhan University, China. He obtained his bachelor and master degree in Civil Engineering from Zhejiang University in 2005 and 2007, and PhD degree in Geotechnical Engineering from NTU in 2013. His teaching and research interests are in engineering geology, rock mechanics and underground engineering including rock fracture modeling, rock fracture related problems analysis, hydraulic Fracture modelling and TBM tunneling in difficulty ground etc.

Dr Wu is visiting HKU under the Sino-British Fellowship Trust Visitorship. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 journal and conference publications. He is an editorial board member of the Journal of Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment (Springer) and Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (Elsevier). Dr. Wu received the 2017 Computers and Geotechnics Outstanding Paper Award (Most Cited Article from 2012-2017), 2015 Singapore Rock Mechanics and Engineering Geology Society Outstanding Paper Award and 2017 Outstanding Research Award for excellent achievement in analysis of discontinuous deformation. He also won the China Youth Thousand Talent Project in 2015.

Abstract
With the rapid development of China’s economy, more and more underground openings in complex grounds are being constructed or planned, e.g. transportation, mining and hydro-power plant tunnels in mixed grounds or under high in situ stress. For the advantages of higher advance rate and construction safety, lower cost and environmental disturbance over the conventional methods, the tunnel boring machine(TBM) is widely used in recent years as a highly automatic mechanized excavation technique especially in long deep buried tunnels. However, the frequent occurrence of both soft and hard rock formations in the long-deep tunnel gives a severe challenge to the rock breakage by TBM cutter head, seriously affecting the efficiency of rock breakage and the speed of the construction, leading to severe wear and shortening the service life of the disc cutter. Based on a TBM project in which Dr Wu has participated over the past few years, this seminar will discuss the TBM performance in high-strength and high-abrasiveness rock mass.