Dr Cacin Wong

Dr Cacin Wong is a Lecturer in the School of Engineering and the Built Environment. She holds a PhD degree in Geotechnical Engineering from University College London.

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Background

Cacin completed her Higher Diploma in Civil Engineering with distinction at Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education in 2013. Her distinction grade allowed her to start Civil and Structural Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong, entering the third year out of four directly. She practiced as a geotechnical engineer after graduating with a Dean’s Honours List for her BEng degree. She was involved in large-scale geotechnical projects such as reclamation, instrumentation and monitoring, tunnelling, ELS bulk excavation and piled foundations, and also highway road maintenance project and structural construction project both on-site and also in a design office in Hong Kong. She was then awarded a departmental scholarship for her PhD degree from University College London. She worked as a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant at UCL, taught tutorial and laboratory classes (soil mechanics, geotechnical engineering) for MEng in Civil Engineering and MEng in Engineering & Architectural Design and help to supervise MSc dissertation projects.

Cacin's first journal paper won the prize for the best paper published in 2020 in Géotechnique Letters (Telford Premium of the Institution of Civil Engineers). She was also awarded the Drury Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers (UK) for best design in under 25 years old category at the Young Structural Engineers’ International Design Competition 2014. The project was to design a simple structure for disaster relief that could be applied in any disaster zone with local natural materials.

Research interests

Cacin’s overarching approach to research is to link the micro-level, to the element testing, to the continuum finite element and also the discrete element modelling. She has extensive experience in designing a new apparatus and carrying out experimental tests as her PhD research project was focused on building and developing an inter-particle loading apparatus to measure the contact behaviour of railway ballast particles. This research was associated with a large project to create accurate DEM modelling of ballast, collaborating with the University of Nottingham and the University of Southampton. In this collaboration, she contributed towards the micromechanical behaviours of the ballast particles by developing apparatus and testing methods to obtain inter-particle parameters so they could use these parameters in the DEM models.

• Discrete element mechanics of soil particles
• Reuse of waste materials for reinforcement in soils
• Applications for cyclic geotechnical problems such as wind turbine loading
• Soil-structural interactions

Areas of Expertise:

• Soil Mechanics
• Geotechnical Engineering
• Experimental Testing

Areas of research supervision

• Soil Mechanics
• Geotechnical Element Testing
• Particulate mechanics

Teaching

BEng (Hons) Civil Engineering

• MOD007038: Civil Engineering Project 2 (Teaching Structural Mechanics & Materials, Geology)
• MOD002347: Geotechnics 2
• MOD002372: Geotechnical Engineering
• MOD005251: Material Technology (Module Leader)
• MOD002385: Major Project (Civil Engineering)
• MOD005495: Research Methods & Dissertation

Qualifications

• PhD in Geotechnical Engineering, University College London, UK
• BEng in Civil and Structural Engineering with a specialist option in Advanced Geotechnical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong (Dean’s Honour List)
• Higher Diploma in Civil Engineering (Distinction), Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education
• Diploma in Civil Engineering (Distinction), Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education

2020

• The best paper published in 2020 in Géotechnique Letters (Telford Premium of the Institution of Civil Engineers)

2017 – 2022

• Departmental scholarship for Ph.D. from Department of Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL

2014 – 2015

• The Drury Medal of the Institution of Structural Engineers (UK). Awarded for best design in under 25 category, Young Structural Engineers’ International Design Competition 2014
• Pang Miu Ping & Yeung Lan Scholarship, Hong Kong (Academic Merit)
• A finalist of the Association of Geotechnical Specialists in Hong Kong Final Year Project competition

2013 – 2014

• Hong Kong Vocational Training Council Student Ambassador 2013 – Bronze Award (Community service)

2012 – 2013

• Hong Kong Mr. K.S. Cheng Memorial Scholarship (Academic and Community Service Merit)
• Distinction (Academic Merit) – Higher Diploma in Civil Engineering
• Construction Engineering Department Achievement Awards (Academic Merit)

2011 – 2012

• Distinction (Academic Merit) – Diploma in Civil Engineering
• Construction Engineering Department Achievement Awards (Academic Merit)
• Gold Award for Volunteer Service in Hong Kong (Community service)

Memberships, editorial boards

• British Geotechnical Association Early Career Group (BGA ECG) Academic Liaison
• Member, British Geotechnical Association (BGA)
• Young Members, International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE)

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• PhD researcher, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) research grant EP/S026460/1, The Application of Micro-Mechanical Research on Coarse Grained Soils to Create an "Avatar" Railway Ballast, 2019-2022

Selected recent publications

Wong, C. P. Y., & Coop, M. R. (In press). The contact mechanics of a UK railway ballast. Géotechnique.

Wong, C. P. Y., & Coop, M. R. (2020). Development of inter-particle friction in a railway ballast. Géotechnique Letters, 10(4), 535-541.

Wong, C. P. Y., Boorman, B., & Coop, M. R. (2019). The construction and commissioning of a new inter-particle loading apparatus for the micromechanical behaviour of railway ballast. In Proceedings of IS Atlanta 2018 symposium on geomechanics from micro to macro in research and practice.

Wong, C. P. Y. (2018). The development of a new micromechanical inter-particle loading apparatus for railway ballast, 15th BGA Young Geotechnical Engineers Symposium (YGES) 2018, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, accepted for presentation.

Recent presentations and conferences

2018: 15th BGA Young Geotechnical Engineers Symposium

2018-2021: Geo-mechanics: From Micro to Macro travelling workshop (GM3)

2018: International Symposium on Geo-mechanics from Micro to Macro in Research and Practice in Atlanta (IS-Atlanta), USA