William Coombs

Professor William Coombs is a Professor in the Department of Engineering at Durham University. He holds a first-class MEng in Civil Engineering (Durham University, 2008) and a PhD in Engineering (Durham University, 2011). His core research focuses on computational mechanics, particularly material constitutive models, finite-deformation mechanics, non-linear finite elements, and the Material Point Method (MPM). He leads projects in offshore geotechnical engineering for renewable energy applications, including cable burial and braced excavations. His work emphasizes open-source tools like the AMPLE MPM code.

Grants & Collaborations:

• EPSRC-funded project EP/W000970/1 (Offshore Cable Burial Depth Analysis)
• EPSRC project EP/X024849/1 (Braced Excavation Modeling)
• Leadership in the Aura CDT for Offshore Wind Energy, training 130+ PhD students.

Research Interests:

• Elasto-plasticity and fracture mechanics
• Non-mesh-based methods (MPM, DG-FEM)
• Offshore geotechnics and wind energy infrastructure
• Ice fracture and calving processes

Students & Supervision: Supervises research on MPM applications, offshore socio-ecological systems, glacier modeling, and composite material optimization. Accepts new PhD students in aligned fields.

Labs & Teams: Leads the Computational Mechanics Research Node within Durham's Engineering Department, fostering collaborations on numerical methods and industrial applications.