Professor Fleur Loveridge

Profile

Fleur works at the interfaces between civil engineering, applied geoscience and mechanical engineering for applications in the sub-surface spanning climate change resilience and adaption, and the energy transition. She is currently one of the academic leads behind the University of Leeds’s Geothermal Energy Living Lab.

Fleur has over twenty five years of experience in ground 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. She is currently a member of the Geosolutions Management Board and a Fellow of the Civic Exchange.

Fleur is a Chartered Engineer and a Chartered Geologists. She is a member of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Technical Committee on Energy Geotechnics (TC308), and is chair of the Technical Committee for the upcoming British Geotechnical Association Biennial Conference on Energy Geotechnics to be held in Leeds in September 2027.

Responsibilities

• Director of Research and Innovation
• Geosolutions Management Board
• Academic co-lead Geothermal Campus

Research interests

Heat Decarbonisation using the ground: The ground is an excellent source and storage medium for thermal energy for decarbonising heating. Fleur’s work in this area started with how to used foundations and other buried structures as ground heat exchangers, but has expanded to included open and closed loop shallow geothermal systems, including the use of shared ground heat exchange systems. All these techniques must also be adopted in buildings, and how these are connected via heat pumps and/or via heat networks, along with the appropriate policy and regulatory environment to encourage uptake are also an important part of the decarbonisation challenge. Fleur’s work as part of an interdiscplinary team at Leeds looks at all aspects of this challenge, and has had a particular focus on how Leeds as a city can pioneer the use of geothermal solutions.

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 impacts of climate change of different types of earthworks failure, and how the adaption deficit can be filled.

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

• GEOGRID – Offgem Strategic Innovation Fund on geothermal energy storage for grid flexibilty and resilience
• Univeristy of Leeds Geothermal Campus Living Lab
• SMARTRES – Smart assessment, management and optimisation of urban geothermal resources (NERC)
• Andel Flood Wall KTP (Innovate UK)
• FOLIAGE: european network for FOstering Large-scale ImplementAtion of energy GEostructure (COST Action). Project Website
• 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)

Primary investigator (PI)

• 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 has more than a decade of 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