Prof John W. Bull

Eur Ing, BSc, PhD, DSc, CEng, FICE, FIStructE, FCIHT, FIWSc

Professor John W Bull graduated from Cardiff University with a first class honours degree in Civil and Structural Engineering and was awarded the Page Prize for the student with the highest marks.  He gained his PhD for his thesis ‘Analysis of Shell Structures by Finite Elements’ and a DSc entitled ‘Computational Engineering Applied to Engineered Structures’ for his substantial contribution to the advancement of knowledge.  He has 158 publications which include 14 authored or edited books,

Following his PhD, John was a Section Engineer with Durham County Council designing and constructing bridges, roads and other civil engineering structures which resulted in him becoming a Chartered Civil Engineer.

Following Durham County Council John moved to an academic career in civil engineering at a university in the north of England.  He also worked with an EPSRC funded Engineering Design Centre and a Regional Centre for Innovation in Engineering Design.  In one eighteen year period, he had research grants to the value of £3M. 

John has been an Adjunct Professor at a University in Australia and a Visiting Professor in a Computer & Systems Engineering Department at a Japanese University.  He has been a Specialist Assessor in Civil Engineering, for the Quality Assessment Division of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, an assessor for EPSRC and a reviewer for South Africa's National Research Foundation.

John has been a member of the BSI Committee for ‘Timber Testing Methods’, representing the Institution of Structural Engineers and is presently a member of the BSI Committee for the ‘Structural use of Aluminum’ representing the Aluminium Federation.  He is a member of the Editorial Boards for the International Journal of Computers and Structures and has been a member of the Editorial Boards of more than thirty one international conferences.  He advises publishers on book proposals, referees papers for journals, has given key note lectures at conferences and provided industrial consultancy services.

John’s published research has been concentrated in a number of research areas with overlapping time lines, starting with the development of deep, thin, cylindrical shell finite elements using simple independent strains.  Further research concerned the adaptive finite element analysis of stiffened shell structures incorporating automatic three dimensional mesh generation, mesh refinement and error estimators.  Later a completely novel way of topological optimisation was developed, significantly reducing computing and mathematical requirements which required no prior knowledge of the expected outcome allowing any required topology to develop.

Another major research area concerned soil-structure interaction with the development of a national guide for the design and construction of concrete flag pavements.  From this developed an analysis of runway repairs following cratering to determine runway repair requirements and estimate the fatigue life of the repaired runway.  This research was further developed to determine the effect of an underground void beneath a concrete runway, developing a means of identifying and assessing the effect of the void, the fatigue life remaining in the runway and guidance on repair requirements.

John’s present research is in two areas.  The first is in the classification of reclaimed structural timbers for reuse in the construction industry which follows on from his research into hardwood timber importing in the UK and the second is the design of structural aluminium linked to his work for a BSI committee.