2005 Young Tall Poppy Science Award Recipient

Dominic Dowling
Faculty of Engineering, University of Technology, Sydney

A large portion of the world’s population live in mud-brick housing, which have brittle, poorly built structures that frequently collapse during earthquakes, causing extensive devastation and death. Dominic Dowling, a PhD research candidate at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), is devising simple and effective ways of strengthening adobe-mudbrick houses in earthquake prone countries. Dominic’s focus is on simple and affordable solutions that are suitable for application in developing countries.

In August 2005, Dominic’s strengthened mud brick house was tested on the $1 million dollar earthquake simulator in UTS’ structures laboratory. The prototype house was reinforced using bamboo poles secured with wire and string to the house walls and a timber ring beam attached to the top of the walls. The design proved to be extremely effective. Whilst an unreinforced structure would be destroyed at 75 or 100% intensity of a 7.7 Richter scale earthquake, the prototype house withstood a series of simulated earthquakes representing the 75%, 100% and 125% intensity of the earthquake, which destroyed over 110,000 adobe-mudbrick houses in El Salvador in 2001.

Dominic has had extensive practical experience in earthquake-affected El Salvador. He worked for four months as a volunteer trainee engineer in the immediate aftermath of two earthquakes in 2001 and undertook a research study focused on the damages to adobe housing and the process of reconstruction. Dominic also co-ordinated the design and construction of a child-care centre in a small rural community in El Salvador in which where he lived and worked. Dominic says “My dream would be that in 50 years everyone in El Salvador, or Peru, or Afghanistan, or wherever, is building in this way, but there’s a lot more work to be done to get there.

Dominic has featured in recent articles in New Scientist and The Australian, as well as Radio Australia’s Innovations program and ABC’s Catalyst. Dominic currently lectures and tutors at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Dominic received a Young Tall Poppy Science Award in 2005.