Dr Ryan Hoult

Dr Ryan Hoult’s PhD assessed the performance of reinforced concrete walls in response to rare and very rare earthquakes. Ryan’s research analysed both rectangular and C-shaped concrete walls to develop a Secondary Cracking Model to predict the potential of cracks forming in these types of walls. Ryan found that the direction of loading and the mode of bending were particularly important for the seismic performance of these sorts of walls.

Post PhD, Ryan moved to Switzerland to take up a Research Fellow position at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne University, leading a project with South American researchers on mitigating earthquake risk, and has noted that South America and Australia have similar issues about a lack
of testing on structures to assess their risk.

"Their building codes are actually lacking over there (South America) quite surprisingly, considering they get a lot of earthquakes,” Ryan said. “The Australian concrete structures code [AS 3600] has allowed designers to detail reinforced concrete walls with a relatively low amount of reinforcement. This is designed for a relatively low earthquake return period, which has resulted in the reinforced concrete buildings of Australia to be vulnerable to a rare earthquake event.”

Ryan now lectures at the University of Melbourne for a range of structural engineering subjects. 

His thesis is available here.