Dr. Elisabeth Bowman

Biography

Elisabeth Bowman is Reader in Geomechanics at the University of Sheffield and has expertise in investigating granular landslide mechanics, focusing on micro-macro phenomena. She completed her undergraduate degree in Engineering and PhD in Geotechnics at the University of Cambridge, UK, with several years in between in Civil Engineering consultancy. In Cambridge she held a Royal Academy of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellowship to explore the behaviour of catastrophic landslides, after which she joined the academic staff at the University in Canterbury in New Zealand. There, she gained valuable field experience in investigating natural hazards as well as continuing with experimental research. In 2013 she returned to the UK to join the University of Sheffield where she is continuing research into fundamental landslide mechanics, internal erosion, soil ageing and soil-structure interaction.  

Elisabeth's research is aimed at understanding particulate-scale mechanisms of geomaterials under deformation, including roles of segregation, creep and fracture that influence important and sometimes puzzling field-scale phenomena. Questions being addressed:

  • What is the role of particle breakage in the runout of large rock avalanches?
  • How does particle size segregation and pore pressure influence the velocity and run out of debris flows?
  • How can seepage induced internal erosion be characterized towards increased safety of hydraulic structures such as dams and levees?
  • Why and how do granular soils strengthen through “ageing”?

Such diverse questions follow a central theme of investigating the localization of soil rheology or constitutive behaviour through material change at the particle level, informed by observation at field scale. Investigative tools include physical modelling, transparent soil, high speed imaging, PIV and PTV techniques, centrifuge and 1g testing, discrete element modelling and field mapping.

Elisabeth currently serves as on the editorial boards of Geotechnique and Canadian Geotechnical Journal and is Secretary of Technical Committee TC208 on "Slope Stability in Engineering Practice" of the ISSMGE. She has received the Casimir Gzowski Medal and Telford Premium prize for her published work on debris flow mechanics.

Further Information