Professor Christophe Gaudin

Professor Christophe Gaudin completed his Masters with honours in Civil Engineering at Ecole Centrale de Nantes, France, in 1999. During his studies he looked at stress state in centrifuged sand samples by in-flight cone penetrometer tests.

In 2002, Professor Gaudin completed his PhD at the same university, looking at ‘Physical and numerical modelling of a cantilever wall - Application to the study of wall foundation interaction’.

After working at the LCPC Centrifuge facility in France for four years while undertaking his studies, Professor Gaudin joined UWA in 2003.

Professor Gaudin has continued his work with centrifuges at UWA and led the establishment of the National Geotechnical Centrifuge Facility, the largest centrifuge modelling centre in the world. He is Director of the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems and Director of the Wave Energy Research Centre.

For his research within the centrifuge facilities, Professor Gaudin looks closely at the design of pipelines, anchors and other offshore infrastructures to improve their safety, efficiency and cost.

Professor Gaudin works closely with industry leaders, including major oil companies ExxonMobil, BP and Total, to implement his research into real-life infrastructure.

As one of his many achievements, over the last decade Professor Gaudin has been involved in the design of almost every major pipeline in the North West Shelf of Australia.

Over recent years, Professor Gaudin has focused on improving the marine renewable energy sector through innovations he created through a collaboration with the Carnegie Clean Energy company.

As part of this, Professor Gaudin has been looking at wave modelling and fluid mechanics, developing commercially viable wave farms by finding the best locations to build the facilities and thereby reducing the foundation costs of the wave energy convertors.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency has given $1 million in funding towards this ground-breaking research.