Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems

This Special Issue celebrates the remarkable contributions of Prof. Rob E. Melchers, on occasion of his retirement from the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Prof. Melchers early achievements include a significant breakthrough in the optimal design of grillages and a new Reciprocal Theorem in the classical Theory of Elasticity.

Over his career, Prof. Melchers made seminal contributions to the areas of structural safety, structural reliability and risk analysis. Conceptual work addressed the wider scope of structural safety, human error and reliability of existing structures. Theoretical contributions covered themes like directional simulation, importance sampling, system reliability, time-dependent reliability and load-space formulation. Practical applications targeted deterioration modelling in reinforced concrete structures like bridges and sewers. Rob´s bestseller book on “Structural Reliability: Analysis and Prediction” is a landmark, as one of the most cited and widely used textbooks on the subject.

Later in his career Prof. Melchers turned his attention to the problem of infrastructure deterioration. His fundamental approach to corrosion research challenged traditional thinking. His seminal achievements here included the phenomenological modelling of marine corrosion of steels and extreme value theory for pit depths. Rob's work in corrosion modelling has led to more reliable pipelines, ships, offshore structures, mooring lines and bridge piers.

Professor Melchers’s seminal career has inspired researchers and students in structural safety and corrosion deterioration modelling. He has also inspired individuals in a wide variety of other disciplines to consider new approaches to risk-based design.  These advances in reliability have also stimulated thinking of how to model system reliability.  This Special Issue presents a compendium of papers honouring the impact of Professor Melcher’s work.

Submissions will be original works. Co-authors are encouraged.

Three types of submissions are solicited:

1. Research papers that focus on a specific example and its links to systems perspectives.  Submit as a ‘Research Article’ and 5,000-8,000 words expected.
2. Literature reviews, which could be multiple forms from conventional literature reviews, to meta-reviews, bibliometric analyses, or state of the art assessment papers.  Submit as a ‘Literature Review’ and 5,000-10,000 words expected.
3. Thought pieces that have the tone and perspective of a Keynote paper at a research conference; these should provide synthesis, new insights, and pointers to future endeavours, but do not need a standard paper format or a comprehensive literature review.  Submit as a ‘Brief Report’ and 2,000-5,000 words expected.

Expected publication date: January 2025.

Select " A Festschrift for Rob Melchers " when submitting to ScholarOne.

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