John McDougall
John McDougall

Dr John McDougall

Reader

 0131 455 2533

  J.McDougall@napier.ac.uk

  

Biography

I came to Edinburgh Napier in 1996, as a research fellow, following a masters degree in Geotechnical Engineering at Bolton University (1993) and a PhD from the University of Manchester (1996). I became a lecturer here in 2004 and a reader in 2008. When I get round to sorting out my application, I will apply to become an Assoc. Prof.

I began my research career with the development of an innovative geomechanical model - the HBM model, which combined hydraulic, biodegradation and mechanical behaviours for the analysis of the long-term behaviour of landfilled waste. The model was able to predict settlement, leachate discharge and gas production under specified field conditions.

Because the landfill process model focussed on a partially saturated medium, my research shifted towards the measurement of unsaturated states in waste and soils more generally.

More recently, with my colleague, Daniel Barreto, I have been researching the dynamic properties shredded car tyres-soil mixtures with the aim of utilising this mixture as a means of improving the seismic resistance of building foundations.

School

Research Groups

Research Areas

Esteem

Advisory panels and expert committees or witness

  • Dutch Sustainable Landfill Management Project

 

Conference Organising Activity

  • UK Session Co Chair, XVI European Conference in Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Edinburgh
  • Conference Organiser & Chair, 5th International Workshop, HPM5 Hydro-physico-mechanics of landfills, 2013
  • Hydro-Physico-Mechanics 3, Technical University Braunschweig, Session Chair

 

Editorial Activity

  • Environmental Geotechnics Special Issue Editorial
  • Geotechnique Symposium in Print, 2009 & 2011
  • Geotechnique Editorial Panel, 2007 - 2010

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Professorial Panel, King Saud University, 2016

 

Invited Speaker

  • "From MSW to Waste Tyres", Indian Institute Science, Bangalore, 2018
  • "Earthquake Resilience by Rubber Soil Mixtures", Fukuoka University, Japan, 2016
  • Dissolution and Precipitation, KAUST, Saudi Arabia, 2016
  • Coupled Phenomena in Environmental Geotechnics, Politecnico di Torino
  • GeoFlorida 2010, ASCE Geo-Institute Annual Congress, "Advances in Analysis, Modeling and Design"
  • 1st Middle European Landfill Conference, Keynote, Budapest, 2008
  • US NSF Workshop on Sustainable Landfills, University of Delaware, 2008
  • "Research and Practice in Waste Mechanics" Panel Member, GeoCongress, New Orleans, 2008

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • PhD External Examiner - Indian Institute Science, Bangalore (2022)
  • PhD External Examiner - Heriot Watt (2022)
  • PhD Exam Cardiff University (2020)
  • PhD External Examiner, University of Southampton
  • PhD Examination Jury, Universidad de Cantabria
  • MRes, University of Bristol
  • PhD Technical University of Delft
  • PhD University of Southampton
  • PhD Strathclyde University
  • PhD University of Dundee
  • PhD University of Southampton
  • PhD University of Southampton
  • PhD Strathclyde University
  • PhD University of Liege
  • MPhil Heriot-Watt University
  • PhD University of Southampton
  • PhD Imperial College

 

Visiting Positions

  • Incoming: Prof Claudio Mahler, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, 9 months
  • Incoming: Dr Marina Miranda, University of Cantabria, 2 months
  • Incoming: Joan Esteban, University Jaume I, Spain, 6 months

 

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Date


41 results

Dynamic Behaviour of a Geotechnical Seismic Isolation System with Rubber-Sand Mixtures to Enhance Seismic Protection

Conference Proceeding
Bernal-Sanchez, J., McDougall, J., Miranda-Manzanares, M., & Barreto, D. (2022)
Dynamic Behaviour of a Geotechnical Seismic Isolation System with Rubber-Sand Mixtures to Enhance Seismic Protection. In Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Earthquake Engineering & Seismology (2674-2683
A Geotechnical Seismic Isolation (GSI) system is proposed in this study based on the use of Rubber-Soil mixtures (RSm) to facilitate the benefits of dynamic soil-foundation st...

Environmental Geotechnics

Journal Article
McDougall, J. (2022)
Environmental Geotechnics. Environmental Geotechnics, 9(2), 66-67. https://doi.org/10.1680/jenge.2022.9.2.66

Housing Construction On Peatland: Phase 1 Report

Report
Bernal-Sanchez, J., McDougall, J., Medero, G., Cook, D., & Barreto, D. (2021)
Housing Construction On Peatland: Phase 1 Report. Edinburgh: Construction Scotland Innovation Centre
The economic development and social resilience of communities in rural Scotland is being hampered by a shortage of affordable housing. Nationally, about 23,000 new homes per y...

Numerical modeling of coupled biochemical and thermal behavior of municipal solid waste in landfills

Journal Article
Kumar, G., Reddy, K. R., & McDougall, J. (2020)
Numerical modeling of coupled biochemical and thermal behavior of municipal solid waste in landfills. Computers and Geotechnics, 128, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2020.103836
A coupled bio-thermal (BT) model is proposed and validated for the prediction of long-term biochemical and thermal behavior of municipal solid waste (MSW) in landfills. The bi...

Grading entropy coordinates and criteria for evaluation of liquefaction potential

Conference Proceeding
Barreto Gonzalez, D., Leak, J., Dimitriadi, V., McDougall, J., Imre, E., & Lőrincz, J. (2019)
Grading entropy coordinates and criteria for evaluation of liquefaction potential. In Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering for Protection and Development of Environment and Constructions, (1346-1353). https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429031274
Several methods are commonly used for the evaluation of liquefaction potential in soils. These include criteria based on SPT and CPT tests, shear wave velocity measurements an...

Experimental assessment of stiffness and damping in rubber-sand mixtures at various strain levels

Conference Proceeding
Bernal-Sanchez, J., Mcdougall, J., Barreto, D., Marinelli, A., Dimitriadi, V., Anbazhagan, P., & Miranda, M. (2019)
Experimental assessment of stiffness and damping in rubber-sand mixtures at various strain levels. In Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering for Protection and Development of Environment and Constructions, (1403-1410
The dynamic properties of shredded rubber-soil mixtures (ShRm), comprising a sub-rounded quartz sand combined with small rubber shreds at 0, 10, 20, 30% by mass, were investig...

Particle-scale interaction in sand-rubber mixtures and their influence on energy dissipation mechanisms

Journal Article
Fonseca, J., Riaz, A., Bernal-Sanchez, J., Barreto Gonzalez, D., McDougall, J., Miranda Manzanares, M., …Dimitriadi, V. (2019)
Particle-scale interaction in sand-rubber mixtures and their influence on energy dissipation mechanisms. Géotechnique Letters, 9(4), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1680/jgele.18.00221
Sand-rubber mixture (SRm) behaviour is affected by rubber content (RC) whilst dissipation in sands is caused by inter-particle sliding. Dissipation in SRm is as, or more signi...

Particle loss: An initial investigation into size effects and stress-dilatancy

Journal Article
McDougall, J., Kelly, D., & Daniel, B. (2019)
Particle loss: An initial investigation into size effects and stress-dilatancy. Soils and Foundations, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2019.03.002
Drained triaxial tests have been performed to explore the effect of particle loss on shearing behaviour and critical states in granular mixtures. The mixtures comprise Leighto...

Dynamic behaviour of shredded rubber soil mixtures

Conference Proceeding
Bernal-Sanchez, J., McDougall, J., Barreto Gonzalez, D., Miranda, M., & Marinelli, A. (2018)
Dynamic behaviour of shredded rubber soil mixtures. In Proceedings of the 16th European Conference in Earthquake Engineering
Residential buildings in high population density areas are seismically vulnerable to the action of major seismic events. The high cost and technical difficulties related to th...

Waste-composition-dependent HBM model parameters based on degradation experiments

Journal Article
Datta, S., Zekkos, D., Fei, X., & McDougall, J. (2021)
Waste-composition-dependent HBM model parameters based on degradation experiments. Environmental Geotechnics, 8(2), 124-133. https://doi.org/10.1680/jenge.18.00014
Municipal solid waste (MSW) is biodegradable in landfills under anaerobic conditions. The evolution of the hydro-biochemical-mechanical (HBM) processes during degradation is ...

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