Staff Profiles - Robert Evans

Contact Details:

Office Location: EN705d
Phone: +61 3 9214 8233
Fax: +61 3 9214 8264
Email:robertevans@swin.edu.au

Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences
Swinburne University of Technology
PO Box 218
Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122
Australia

Robert Evans
BEng(Hons), MEng, GradDipMgt, MBA, MIEAust, CPEng.
Lecturer

After graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours, Robert was awarded a joint scholarship by Vicroads and Swinburne to undertake a Master of Engineering by Research. The research topic dealt with controlling the moisture regime beneath flexible pavements, thus reducing the damaging effects of expansive soil movement within the pavement’s subgrade. This resulted in a standard Vicroads practice for designing and constructing vertical moisture barriers (Vicroads Technical Note 13). This research also won the best paper award at the 18th Australian Road Research Board Conference “Roads 96” held in New Zealand. After a short period in industry as a Geotechnical Engineering consultant, Robert joined the academic team at Swinburne as our Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Lecturer.

Robert is also currently undertaking PhD studies in the area of pavement deterioration modelling by power spectral density analysis of road profiles.

Areas of Expertise and Research

• Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
• Expansive Soils and their interaction with Highway Pavements and Light Structures.
• Analysis, Design and Construction of Vertical Moisture Barriers as a Remedial Action to Reduce Expansive Soil damage to Highway Pavements founded on alluvial expansive soil deposits.
• Deterioration Modelling of Highway Pavement – particularly pavements affected by expansive soil distress.
  

Lecturing Fields

• Geomechanics
• Geotechnical Engineering
• Geology
• Structures

Professional Memberships and Activities

• Member, Institution of Engineers Australia, MIEAust.
• Chartered Professional Engineer (Civil), CPEng.
• National Professional Engineers Register, NPER.
• Member, State Committee, Australian Geomechanics Society, 1998-99

Publications

1. Evans, R. P. & Holden, J. C. (1994). “Use of Geomembranes to Control Pavement Movements from Expansive Soils.” Presented at Ground Modification Seminar No. 3 - Geosynthetics in Road Engineering, pp. 157-166, University of Technology - Sydney, Australia.
2. Evans, R. P., Holden, J. C. & McManus, K. J. (1996). “Application of a New Vertical Moisture Barrier Construction Method for Highway Pavements”. ARRB Transport Research Prize for Best Paper. Proceedings of the Eighteenth ARRB Transport Research Conference & Transit NZ Transport Symposium - Roads 96, pp. 245-258, Christchurch, New Zealand.
   Note: This paper was awarded the ARRB Research Transport Prize for the best paper describing research in practice at the Joint 18th ARRB Transport Research Conference & Transit NZ Transport Symposium - Roads 96, Christchurch, New Zealand.
3. Evans, R. P., Holden, J. C. & McManus, K. J. (1996). “Application of a New Moisture Barrier Construction Method for Highway Pavements”, ARRB Transport Research Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 4-12, Australia.
4. Evans, R. P. & McManus, K. J. (1997). “Rehabilitation of Pavement Damage from Expansive Soils”. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Inspection, Appraisal, Repairs and Maintenance of Buildings and Structures, pp. 85-94, Singapore.
5. Evans, R. P., McManus, K. J. and Mann, A. (1998). “Problems with the Performance of Lightly Loaded Structures Founded on Expansive Soils”. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Problematic Soils, Vol. 1, pp. 357-360, Sendai, Japan
6. Mann, A., McManus, K. J. & Evans, R. P. (1998). “The Use of Power Spectral Density Analysis to Determine Deterioration Modes in Pavement Structures”. Proceedings of the Ninth REAAA Conference, Vol. 2, pp. 263-268, Wellington, New Zealand.
7. McManus, K. J., Mann, A. and Evans, R. P. (1998). “The Analysis of Road Roughness and the Perception of Road Roughness”. Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium on Heavy Vehicle Weights and Dimensions (on CD), in conjunction with the 5th Engineering Foundation Conference on Vehicle-Infrastructure Interaction, Maroochydore, Queensland, Australia.
8. McManus, K. J., Evans, R. P. and Mann, A. (1998). “A Rationale for the Location of Vertical Moisture Barriers for Pavements in Expansive Soil Regions”. Proceedings of the Nineteenth ARRB Conference - Transport 98 (on CD), Sydney, Australia.
9. Hassan, R. A., McManus, K. J. and Evans, R. P. (1998). “Roughness Waveband Characteristics as an Indicator of Pavement Deterioration”. Proceedings of the Nineteenth ARRB Conference - Transport 98 (on CD), Sydney, Australia.
10. Evans, R. P. and McManus, K. J. (1999). “The Construction of Vertical Moisture Barriers to Reduce Expansive Soil Subgrade Movement”. Transportation Research Record 1652: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Low Volume Roads, Vol. 2., pp. 108-112, Transportation Research Board, National Research Council, Washington D.C., USA.
11. McManus, K. J., Evans, R. P., Judge, M. and Snell, M. (1999). “Deterioration Models and Life Cycle Costing for Local Concrete Pavements within the City of Stonnington”. Proceedings of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Conference – New Frontiers and Challenges, Vol. 4, Section 7, pp. 35-40, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand.
12. McManus, K. J. and Evans, R. P. (1999). “Towards the Use of the Laser Profilometer to Measure Outcomes of Maintenance Effort”. Proceedings of the Twenty First World Road Congress (Piarc) Conference (on CD) – In English and French, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
13. McManus, K. J. and Evans, R. P. (1999). “Deterioration Models for Flexible and Rigid Pavements in Local Government”. Proceedings of the Twenty First World Road Congress (Piarc) Conference (on CD) – In English and French, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
14. Evans, R. P. and McManus, K. J. (2000). “A Selection Process for Locating Vertical Moisture Barriers Using Power Spectral Density Analysis”. Proceedings of the Tenth REAAA Conference, Tokyo, Japan.