Professor Fleur Loveridge

Profile

Fleur has more than twenty years of experience in civil engineering covering both industry and academia.  Fleur graduated from the University of Oxford in Earth Sciences and the University of Leeds in Engineering Geology before spending the best part of a decade as a consulting engineer for Babtie Group and Mott MacDonald. During this period Fleur's work included site investigation, design and construction supervision for a variety of infrastructure projects and applied research and development in engineering geology and geotechnical engineering. Projects included the Panama Canal Third Set of Locks Project, A3 Hindhead Improvements, Network Rail Seasonal Preparedness Study, M1 Dundalk Western Bypass and High Speed 1 Ashford Tunnels to name but a few.

In 2009 Fleur returned to academia and completed a PhD in the "Thermal performance of foundation piles used as heat exchnagers in ground energy systems" at the University of Southampton.  In 2013 she became a Lecturer in Geomechanics in Southampton before being awarded a five year Research Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering.  She joined the Univeristy of Leeds as a University Academic Fellow in 2016, before becoming an Associate Professor in 2020 and Professor in 2022.

Fleur is a Chartered Engineer and a Chartered Geologists. She was a contributing author to the Ground Source Heat Pump Association Thermal Pile Standard and is a member of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Technical Committee on Energy Geotechnics (TC308), where she leads to Task Force on Energy Geostructures. She is an Associate Editor for the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, a member of EPSRC peer review college, and a NERC UK Geoenergy Observatories Project Science Advisory Group member.

Awards

• Geotechnical Engineering Lecture, Institution of Civil Engineers, 2014
• Selected to represent the Institution of Civil Engineers in the Karen Burt Award 2007
• Ernest A. Herzog Award, 2003 (given by the Boston Society of Civil Engineers for a publication)
• Winner of the Engineering Group of the Geological Society Glossop Award, 2002
• Winner of the British Geotechnical Association Cooling Prize, 2001

Responsibilities

• Director or Research and Innovation
• Geosolutions Management Board

Research interests

Heat Decarbonisation: The use of the ground as a thermal store in conjunction with a ground source heat pump systems and district heating systems is an essential technology on our route to Net Zero. All such systems operate using some form of ground heat exchanger, which are expensive to construct. Fleur's current work is on how novel ground heat exchangers can reduce capital investment and increase uptake of heat pump systems.  She is a pioneer in the field of using structure foundations and other buried infrastructure as a source and storage medium for thermal energy. Work includes assessmnet of energy capacity for piles, walls, tunnels and water/drainage/waste water infrastructure used as heat exchangers. She also takes an active role in plans to decarbonise the university campus and wider Leeds region using a variety of geothermal resources. 

Infrastructure Resilience: Our geotechnical infrastructure assets are vulnerable to performance degradation with time due to the interplay of climate and vegetation. After playing a leading role in Network Rail’s Seasonal Preparedness Project, Fleur has gone on to work on EPSRC funded projects focusing on the deterioration of soil materials due to environmental interactions. She is interested in the interplay between soil permeabilty, vegetation impacts and climate. Current work is focusing on the importance of drainage to both track and earthworks under current and future climate, the impact of climate change on porewater pressure regimes, understanding of the role of heterogeneity in influencing earthwork behaviour, and translation of state of the art research into routine design approaches for practice.

Both these themes are brought together under the umbella of UKCRIC – the UK Collaboratorium for Reseach in Infrastructure and Cities – where Fleur leads work on using national and local infrastructure for heat transfer and storage. 

Fleur is always interested in supervising PhD students in any of these or related areas.

Main Current and Past Research Projects

• SMARTRES – Smart assessment, management and optimisation of urban geothermal resources
• Andel Flood Wall KTP (Innovate UK)
• Integrated Infrastructure for Sustainable Thermal Energy Provision: INSTEP (UKRI Innvoation Fellowship)
• ACHILLES: Assessment, costing and enhancement of long life long linear assets (EPSRC Programme Grant) Project Website
• PLEXUS - Priming Laboratory Experiments on Infrastruture and Urban Systems (UKCRIC Pump Priming Funds) UKCRIC Website
• Improved Earthworks Drainage for Safer Reliable Railways (Network Rail Drainage Challenge Initiative)
• Non Steady Analytical Models for Energy Pile Testing and Design (EPSRC First Grant, awarded 2016)
• European network for shallow geothermal energy applications in buildings and infrastructures (GABI) (COST Action) Project website
• New Thermal and Geotechnical Facility for Ground Heat Exchangers (Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship)
• Infrastructure slopes Sustainable Management And Resilience Assessment (EPSRC) Project website
• Performance of Ground Energy Systems Installed in Foundations (EPSRC)

• Efficient ground energy systems in diaphragm walls in challenging con
• Smart assessment, management and optimisation of urban geothermal resources (SmartRes)

Qualifications

• PhD Engineering & the Environment (2012)
• MSc Engineering Geology (1999)
• BA Earth Sciences (1998)

Professional memberships

• Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers
• Fellow of the Geological Society
• Member of the British Geotechnical Association
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Student education

Fleur has lectured in soil mechanics and energy geotechnics, as well as contributed to student education in geotechnical engineering, engineering geology, infrastructure design, and to civil engineering and energy reserach projects at undergraduate and master level. She also has significant experience of the Constructionarium field course. She is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Research groups and institutes

• Cities, Infrastructure and Energy

Current postgraduate researchers

• Josh Turner
• Aakash Gupta
• Paul R Howlett
• Seif Alnahar
• Jiahui Zhou
• Joe Kelly

Projects

<li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/1401-performance-of-high-density-geopolymer-pillars-for-ground-improvement-and-structural-support">Performance of high density geopolymer pillars for ground improvement and structural support</a></li>