Civil Engineering: Facilities

The Urban Observatory has the largest set of publicly available real time urban data in the UK.

Our sensors are gathering data across the city. There are over 50 data types and counting.

Visit the Urban Observatory
Explore the data
Contact: Prof Stephanie Glendinning

The National Green Infrastructure Facility (NGIF) forms part of UKCRIC (EPSRC reference EP/R010102/1). UKCRIC is a UK-wide portfolio of research and innovation facilities and programmes. UKCRIC informs the renewal, sustainment and improvement of infrastructure and cities in the UK.

NGIF is a ‘living lab’. It investigates challenges in water and sub-surface behaviour for urban sustainability. The lab:

generates real world insights into sustainable drainage systems
develops novel approaches and technologies for improved surface water management
increases our understanding of the interaction between the climate and the urban landscape
NGIF is on the prestigious Newcastle Helix site, with our programme of work extending into the wider city. All data collected feeds into Newcastle’s Urban Observatory.

Headline figures

Total number of sensors: 220
Total parameters measured: 508
Number of weekly data points: >2.1 million
Read more about the National Green Infrastructure Facility (PDF: 1.9MB).

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Contact: Dr Ross Stirling

The Key is a revolutionary 'building as a lab' as the first fabric structure used as a heated workspace in the UK. It was the University’s first building on the prestigious Newcastle Helix site.

The Key is an at-scale research facility with detailed environmental and structural monitoring. It is the culmination of 15 years’ of world-leading research on fabric structures at Newcastle University.

Contact: Prof Peter Gosling

Our extensive facilities support our research. We provide full-scale rail and track investigations at Barrow Hill. We offer a range of mechanical and materials testing in our University laboratories.

Barrow Hill full-scale test facilities

Our Barrow Hill test facility is on a 14-acre site near Chesterfield in the UK.

Barrow Hill is a working railway centre. It provides excellent facilities for full-scale rail vehicle and track investigations. It connects to the mainline railway network. It has undercover vehicle accommodation, including maintenance pits and ancillary services.

There is over a mile of running track with a wide range of vehicles and carriages. The site houses engineering workshops. It offers high performance computer modelling.

There is also a dedicated office with meeting facilities.

Wheel-rail testing

Our Wheel-Rail Interface Group is active in wheel-rail testing at Barrow Hill. Testing is available for projects and consultancy services, including:

• crack initiation and growth in rails
• wear in rails
• fatigue
• adhesion at the wheel-rail interface

Find out more

For more information on our facilities at Barrow Hill, contact Prof Mark Robinson.

Our laboratories at Newcastle University provide high quality testing and consultancy services.

The labs house a full range of mechanical testing and materials characterisation equipment. This includes a falling weight impact rig. We have equipment for resin infusion, vacuum bag moulding, press moulding, putrusion (thermoset and thermoplastic), powder impregnation and filament winding.

At our labs, we also investigate:

• welding and joining techniques
• failure analysis: metals and composites
• modelling: finite element software, plant design, fire modelling of composites

Small scale fire reaction testing

We have particular expertise in measuring the fire properties of materials. Our test equipment includes:

• a furnace
• jet heat flux up to 200 kW/m²
• cone calorimeter
• fire testing under load

Laboratories and field sites

Our exceptional range of laboratories has a wide variety of analytical and experimental instrumentation. These facilities support our research, teaching, and commercial work.

As founding members of UKCRIC, we host the National Green Infrastructure Facility.

We’re also home to the Newcastle Urban Observatory, which has the largest set of publicly available real-time urban data in the UK. These and our other facilities support our research, teaching and commercial work. They include:

• heavy structures
• geotechnics and materials
• BIONICS Embankment Research Facility
• the Key: the UK’s first fabric workspace, designed by Prof Peter Gosling

We have a variety of instrumented, full-scale research facilities.

BIONICS embankment research facility

This full-scale transport infrastructure embankment forms part of the Biological & Engineering Impacts of Climate Change on Slopes (BIONICS) project (EPSRC reference GR/S87430/01).

The structure is 90m long, 6m high at its crest, and constructed from typical boulder clay derived engineered fill. The slope stability research facility has hosted a variety of national and international collaborations and trials, including:

• iSMART: Infrastructure slopes: Sustainable Management And Resilience Assessment
• ACHILLES: Assessment, costing and enhancement of long life, long linear assets
• COST Action TU1202: Impacts of climate change on engineered slopes for infrastructure
• PRIME: Proactive Infrastructure Monitoring and Evaluation
• Slope ALARMS: Assessment of Landslides using Acoustic Real-time Monitoring systems

Headline figures

• Total number of sensors: 83
• Total parameters measured: 271

Contact: Dr Ross Stirling

Laboratory capabilities

We carry out our teaching and research in labs with state-of-the-art equipment.

130kN Bi-axial tension/shear rig: An in-house custom-built rig specifically designed for the testing of composite materials, and particularly bi-axial loading of woven and non-woven structural fabrics.

Large testing frames: Avery-Denison 250kN, 1000kN and 5000kN tension/compression loading machines

Advanced triaxial testing rigs: We use these to conduct triaxial, effective stress analysis on weak rocks (mudstones, shales etc) and soils.

Local Strain Measurement: used to measure small strain behaviour in soils and to determine their initial stiffness properties. Methods include Bender Elements and Hall Effect Gauges.

Unsaturated Soil Triaxial Testing: Enables sample testing under conditions approaching the in-situ stress state, degree of saturation or partial saturation. The Stress Dependent Soil Water Characteristic Curve (SDSWCC) may be obtained using the axis translation technique. Capable of measuring volume change: directly using an air pressure/volume controller, by HKUST inner cell, double walled cell and on-sample strain transducers.

Dynamic/Cyclic Loading: this apparatus can apply monotonic or cyclic loading to simulate earthquakes and other cyclic/dynamic loading of soils.

Soil direct tensile strength test

We have developed a direct tensile strength testing method for soils in saturated and unsaturated states. The apparatus uses a classic direct shear (shearbox) rig to enable a range of strain rate controlled testing options.

Soil-water retention determination

Our labs have the following equipment/techniques:

• filter paper method
• dewpoint potentiometer (WP4C)
• SoilMoisture Corp pressure plates
• HYPROP simultaneous suction-volumetric water content determination equipment

In addition to the proprietary equipment, we are developing in-house high capacity tensiometers capable of suction measurement in excess of 2.5 MPa.

Thermal and hydraulic conductivity testing equipment

We use this equipment to determine thermal and hydraulic characteristics of soils and rocks. It has applications associated with energy piles, buried pipelines, geothermal energy and soil-plant-atmosphere interactions.

EKG has applications in:

• material dewatering (including sewage and other wastes)
• ground consolidation
• sports turf
• composting

Specialist cells developed in the laboratory determine electro-osmotic permeability, flow rate, and gas evolution.

Digital image correlation

This equipment is state of the art. It provides the capability to measure shape, displacement, and strain in either two or three dimensions.

The system can analyse specimens ranging from <1mm to >10m. It maintains high levels of accuracy while displaying the real-time analysis results.

Within the lab at Newcastle University, we primarily use it to determine the strain characteristics of metal, soil, fabric, and composite samples.

Photogrammetry

We benefit from high-end digital image capturing hardware. We use this to analyse the material characteristics of structural and composite fabrics.

Our high speed cameras include 3x Point Grey Grasshopper USB cameras. These are capable of capturing 3.2 megapixels at 120 FPS and help with particle image velocimetry.

Heavy reaction frame and strong floor

This system is highly adjustable. It gives us the ability to apply loads in a wide range of configurations. It uses single and double acting hydraulic rams capable of providing both compressive and tensile forces up to 1300kN.

Additionally, we can use these rams in parallel to provide many loads simultaneously.

A servo-controlled actuator system allows us to apply complex load histories, including cyclic and full dynamic testing.

Landslide flume

This high-angle flume is 4m long, 0.3m wide, and 0.3m thick with recirculating flow and the ability to tilt up to 45 degrees. It has glass sides to enable particle tracking using our array of high speed cameras. It has seven pressure transducers to measure flow thickness down the centre line of the flume.

Shaking table

We use this equipment to impose seismic loading on model structures and foundations. We can upload data from real seismic events in the control system to recreate real earthquake conditions.

We monitor displacements and accelerations within the model structures during testing to assess performance.

Climate control chambers

Two chambers of dimensions 0.6 × 1.2 × 1.0m are each capable of maintaining temperatures of 0-70°C and humidities of 10-80% RH at 40°C). Positionable ICH-compliant UV/Vis light sources and internal data logging enable customisable environmental time-series sequences.

We use the chambers to:

• condition samples
• run tests of water vapour sorption (eg shrinkage/swelling and cracking)
• construct BET plots of surface area

Dynamic vapour sorption

This equipment is similar to a climate chamber, but on very small samples (eg 50micrograms).

It has a temperature range 5-40°C and humidity 0-98%. It also has extremely precise (to seven decimal points) weight change measurement via microbalance. We can use this to draw sorption isotherms and compute mesopore size distributions (1-50 nm pore diameters). It also allows us to measure specific surface area via the BET method.

We are currently using the equipment to:

• study concrete damage due to fire-induced drying
• characterise of the specific surface of artificial bone (hydroxyapatite)

We have installed experimental monitoring across a range of field sites.

As founding members of UKCRIC, we host the National Green Infrastructure Research Facility. We also host the Newcastle Urban Observatory. These facilities and more support our teaching. They include:

• hydraulic laboratories
• our own dedicated set of full-scale boreholes at the University’s Cockle Park Farm.

Field sites

We have a range of cutting-edge resources to support our world class research and teaching.

Instrumentation and collecting representative data is vital. It leads to innovation and the development of system understanding across catchments in both rural and urban environments.

We have extensive expertise in designing and instrumenting catchments and urban environments. Our instrumented sites enable us to understand:

• river flows
• floods
• groundwater
• water quality
• general hydrological processes

We have catchment wide studies in Belford, Eden, and Tyne in the UK.

Abroad, we have deployed equipment in Ethiopia and other parts of the Nile Basin, Iwokrama (Guyana), and Palestine.

We also co-lead the design and deployment of the Urban Observatory, the UK’s largest network of sensors and open data in the urban environment. It looks at water, infrastructure, air quality, biodiversity and other factors.

Our instrumented sites in Northern England include the following.

Eden DTC

A National Demonstration Test Catchment

• Read more about Eden DTC

Ouseburn

The group have been involved with a number of projects on the River Ouseburn, Newcastle.

They include the Making Space for Water Project pilot project on the Upper Ouseburn, and several related water quality studies.

The Ouseburn Catchment Steering Group (OCSG) also produced The Ouseburn Catchment Action Plan (The OCAP) in 2009.

• Read more about our involvement with the Ouseburn catchment

Our state-of-the-art facilities enable us to carry out world class research.

Some of our facilities are multidisciplinary spaces that promote co-evolution of research. They are available to staff and students.

Novak lab

The Novak Lab is used for practicals, as well as undergraduate and MSc projects.

18m flume (long flume)

• Practicals:
• examining open channel effects, varied flow, subcritical and supercritical flow
• sequent depths, hydraulic jump and energy loss
• Projects:
• various, including floods defences, leaky barriers, flow rate estimations

Venturi flumes 3m

• Practicals:
• open channel flow - verifying energy curves and discharge equation, measuring flow based on conservation of energy

Rainfall and runoff simulator

• Practical:
• experiments to determine unit hydrographs and how they form
• used to model flow

Wide flume 12m × 1m

Our new state-of-the-art hydraulic flume opened in September 2019.

• Practicals (not formal teaching):
• demonstrations of open channel flow
• Projects:
• experimental investigations of behaviour of leaky barriers, flow around structures such as bridges

Sediment transport channel (small flume)

• Practicals:
• demonstrates the full range of bed forms that occur in a mobile bed as flow changes

Multi-Function lab

The Multi-Function Lab is used for practicals using self-circulating small benches.

Pressurised flow

• pipe friction loss
• verifying the pipe friction equation, turbulent and laminar flow

Weirs

• measuring Q and head over various weirs to investigate the relationship
• use of discharge equation, determining discharge coefficients

Bernoulli effect

• investigating variations in pressure heads and velocity heads when a steady flow goes through convergent/divergent pipe
• practise Bernoulli equation, investigate energy losses

Buoyancy

• determining the metacentric height of a floating body in static equilibrium

Hydrostatic pressures

• examining the effect of changing immersion of a vertical plane on the hydrostatic forces acting on it
• use of hydraulic thrust equation

Building and city as a lab (BaaL, CaaL) at the rrban observatory

The Urban Observatory deploys sensor networks and collects data across scales. We can observe these systems as part of a nested ‘living laboratory’.

The Urban Sciences Building is an instrumented building. It sits within the 24-acre instrumented Newcastle Helix site, within an instrumented city. It functions as a ‘living lab’ where the building itself becomes a test bed.

The Building as a Lab (BaaL) initiative includes:

• whole building monitoring systems (electricity, heat, water, CO₂)
• multi-system real-time intelligent control
• energy storage and novel DC grid
• sensor infrastructure within the building
• a framework for building user participation with research

The data is open source and available through the Urban Observatory.

The Urban Sciences Building is also home to the multidisciplinary UKCRIC Water Urban Science and Engineering Research (USER) laboratory. This laboratory provides infrastructure for modular and treatment train testing of:

• novel sustainable urban drainage (SUDs) technologies
• Green Infrastructure (GI)
• Natural Flood Management techniques

The laboratory extends to the Newcastle Helix site and the wider city through the Urban Observatory sensor networks. The reach of these networks is constantly growing. All the data is open source and available through the Urban Observatory.

Geometry: Borehole array

Groundwater Engineering Operations Monitoring Evaluation and Testing Laboratory

The geometry field laboratory focuses on hydrogeological field measurements and data interpretation associated with boreholes. It is one of the Earth Systems Laboratories managed by the School of Engineering. It supports some of the Masters courses taught by the School of Engineering by providing:

• a teaching facility, giving students practical experience in borehole measurements and data collection, and an appreciation of the complexities of applying science to real situations
• a resource for MSc students to undertake research projects as part of their course.

The laboratory is located on the University's farm at Cockle Park near Morpeth, with the co-operation of the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences. This facility is used and managed by the School of Engineering and is also available as a research tool and training facility for the University's other Schools and Research Institutes as well as industrial partners.

High-quality data is at the heart of our innovative research.

The water group collects, generates, stores and uses enormous volumes of environmental data. This includes data from:

• catchment studies
• continuous monitoring
• collation of global datasets

We have established catchment-scale network projects, including rain gauges and flow meters.

We have permanent deployments in and around Newcastle itself. The Urban Observatory operates an X-band rainfall radar and multi-million pound real-time sensor network. We work with communities to monitor their local environment.

At a larger scale, our research is collating a global sub-daily rainfall dataset. We are producing extreme rainfall indices which describe rainfall patterns around the world.

We work with colleagues in Geomatics. Together, we generate and use remote sensing and geographical data. We collect this data using satellite and airborne platforms including UAVs.

Data we collect/generate

• National Green Infrastructure Facility
• Urban Observatory (Newcastle, including water quality and the Ouseburn catchment)
• Community monitoring (Haltwhistle, Glenridding, Ethiopia)
• Historical/archived data (Fepsys)
• Gauging catchments
• UK gridded hourly rainfall dataset
• Flood maps for European cities (RAMSES)
• Global sub-daily rainfall dataset (INTENSE)
• High resolution climate models (CONVEX)