Prof. Hans Bernd Mühlhaus, University of Queensland, Australia

has the Chair of Computational Earth Systems Mechanics at ESSCC and is the Director of Research for ESSCC. He received Dr. Ing. in 1980 and Higher Doctorate (Habilitation) in Geomechanics in 1987 from Universitat Karlsruhe.

Hans is internationally renowned for his contributions to the theory and application of generalised continua. Such theories provide a unified framework for the analytical and computational modelling of heterogeneous natural and engineered materials on all scales.

The main current focus of Professor Mühlhaus and his team is the application of continuum concepts (generalised or other) as well as molecular dynamics-style discrete techniques to the simulation of complex systems in general including natural and industrial processes such as plate tectonics, the non-linear systems aspects of ore body genesis, non-linear dynamical simulation of mining robots, involving millions of discrete particles, in-situ leaching technologies and the nonlinear dynamics of the Australian plate.

Over the last 5 years, Hans has worked on nuclear power plants, tunnel stability, granular flow, block caving to non-mechanical mining methods such as in-situ leaching. During this time he also published 24 Journal papers and 32 refereed book chapters and conference volumes.