The collaboration is aimed at developing products, processes and systems that will benefit the construction sector and society as a whole.
Initially focusing on autonomous tunnelling technologies, imaging, and digital simulations, the partnership is likely to include collaborative research, technology projects, joint publications, secondments, internships and education programmes among other things.
The University of Birmingham is home to the National Buried Infrastructure Facility (NBIF), which is part of the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC). UKCRIC is designed to stimulate research activities in the fields of infrastructure and cities through collaboration between academia, industry and government. NBIF is currently leading research into areas such as soil/structure interaction, digital twinning, tunnelling and quantum-technology sensing.
hyperTunnel and the University of Birmingham will also engage in joint activities at the university’s new campus in Dubai, which includes the development of a multi-million pound Tunnelling Centre of Excellence.
hyperTunnel director of corporate development John Moreland-Lynn announced the formation of the multi-stakeholder centre earlier this month at the Big 5 Construction Conference in Dubai. Earlier this year, hyperTunnel was named Start-up of the Year at the Construction Technology Awards show in Dubai.
“The University of Birmingham is one of the top 100 academic institutions in the world and the NBIF is a world-class facility,” said hyperTunnel co-founder Jeremy Hammond. “Both our organisations are deeply involved in radically innovating underground infrastructure. It’s really exciting to think about what we can achieve by combining our expertise like this.”
“We’re really looking forward to diving into this collaboration,” said Nicole Metje, Professor of Infrastructure Monitoring at the University. “Joining forces with pioneering British organisations like hyperTunnel to expand our research and amplify our impact and theirs is exactly what we’re about. This partnership is a significant milestone for NBIF.”
