Robert Simpson

Biography

Robert Simpson obtained his PhD from Durham University in 2010 under the supervision of Jon Trevelyan. His thesis investigated the effects of applying enrichment schemes to the boundary element method for accurate simulation of fracture and fatigue. He subsequently took a position at Cardiff University as a research associate under an EPSRC funded grant to develop novel numerical methods for semiconductor device simulation in collaboration with the device modelling group at the University of Glasgow. In 2011 Robert continued his employment at Cardiff University as a lecturer in the school of engineering, civil and environmental engineering department. In 2013 Robert was appointed as a lecturer in the school of engineering at the University of Glasgow. He is a member of the Infrastructure and Environment research division with teaching duties falling under the civil engineering programmes.

Research Interest

Robert's research interests are focussed on the development of novel numerical methods for engineering applications. He has worked mainly on boundary element methods for applications including fracture, elasticity, acoustics and potential problems. He has experience of domain discretisation technologies such as the finite element method and finite difference method and their application to semiconductor device simulation. Recently, Robert's particular research focus has been on isogeometric boundary element methods which aim to merge Computer Aided Design (CAD) and analysis technologies for efficient engineering design. He has applied the method using NURBS and T-spline discretisations to elasticity and acoustic simulations and is pursuing acceleration methods for computing large 3D problems in reasonable time frames.