PhD by Portfolio Proposal
Reynolds BEng
Civil Engineering
A professor reading this page is being asked to admit a coherent body of existing work, plus one live investigation. The papers that follow are written as engineering. This page is the cover: why the work exists, what it now contains, and what remains to be tested.
1. Why this work exists
In 2008, at the end of a first-class BEng, my tutor Dr Stephen Vary asked a genuine question: can the loadings on a circular concrete tank be calculated without coefficient tables? I spent the last months of the degree in the ICE library at Great George Street. I found Viktor Lewe’s name, I found tables with no parent theory on the page, and I gave an honest answer. No. Not then.
Section 6.1 of that thesis listed six tasks for whoever came next. I am that person, eighteen years on. I do not need a doctorate as an ornament. I need the chain examined: reference, term, source, converter, and one experiment that could falsify the extra term.
The answer to Vary’s question is now yes as method. It is not yet yes as a measured code clause. That distinction is deliberate.
2. The 2008 tasks
| 2008 §6.1 task | Where it now sits |
|---|---|
| 1. Understand the derivation of the PCA tables | Project 1 |
| 2. Translation of Reissner and Lewe | Project 1 and Appendix E |
| 3. Follow up further references | Project 1 — Carpenter 1927, Gray, Batty and Westbrook, ICE chain |
| 4. Create a design method from scratch using one basic shell theory | Projects 2–4. Love’s thin shell, Lewe’s visibility, closed by Z_R |
| 5. Effect of base-slab deflection | Open. Reserved to the experiment |
| 6. Effect of prestress on deflection | Open. Prestress treated as an imposed F on the same surface |
Tasks 1–3 are historical and complete as text. Task 4 is complete as method. Tasks 5 and 6 are the live project.
3. Rationale
Design of reinforced concrete cylindrical tanks, silos and containment structures still leans on empirical coefficient tables, notably Domel and Gogate, Circular Concrete Tanks without Prestressing, PCA, 1993. Those tables have a parent. Project 1 restores it to Lewe 1915, via Carpenter 1927. When the parent is omitted, the designer cannot see what the coefficient is carrying. Designs then tend to be conservative, with more material and more embodied carbon than the geometry requires, and with safety factors that cannot be pointed at term by term.
The profession can do better than that. A first-principles geometric method, kept visible after the cut, offers thinner walls where the geometry allows, a clearer safety case, and a better reading of ageing shells — including high-consequence cylinders such as containment. This portfolio is offered to correct the scholarly record and to put a usable equation back on the calculation sheet.
4. Premise
A circular tank can be calculated from four visible pieces:
- liquid hoop, pr/t
- residual ring tension, sigma_R = F / Z_R
- joint restraint that moves part of those two into moment and shear
- duration: live Z_R before set, locked Z_R after set
If a number cannot be pointed at as one of those four, it is a coefficient. The tables may stay as a check. They are no longer the theory.
The Portfolio – Ready for Submission
Project 1 — Restoring the reference chain
https://ace-consultancy.uk/phdh-restoring-the-reference-chain-viktor-lewes-1915-thin-shell-analysis-and-the-provenance-of-coefficient-tables-in-the-design-of-circular-concrete-tanks/
Status: ready.
Project 2 — Making the invisible term visible
https://ace-consultancy.uk/phdi-first-principles-geometric-ring-tension-in-cylindrical-concrete-shells-making-the-invisible-term-visible/
σ_θ = pr / t + σ_R
Status: ready.
Part 2 closed by Project 4.Project 3 — The strength of concrete is the strength of water
https://ace-consultancy.uk/phdp-project-3-the-strength-of-concrete-is-the-strength-of-water/
Status: ready.
Project 4 — The breathing sphere
https://ace-consultancy.uk/phdq-project-4-the-breathing-sphere-dilatant-compression-as-impulsed-expansion-at-t-0/
Z_R = A_* t_* L_* τ² = m⁴ s²
σ_R = F / Z_R
Status: ready.
Closes 2008 Task 4.
Appendix A — Bistable continuum / Navier–Stokes closure
Appendix B — Control of σ_R by Bessel zeros
Appendix C — Rest Time frame and unit writings
Appendix D — Preferred reference frame
Appendix E — Lewe translations, 1906 and 1915
Experiment — not a finished paper.
Phase 1: super-thin steel cylinder, former removed, elastic confinement, hoop-excess measurement. Falsifies σ_R = 0 at model scale. Tasks 5 and 6 of 2008 sit here.
The narrative is one chain: reference, term, source, converter, then a test. A reviewer can read Project 1 without reading Appendix D.
8. Original contribution
Not a new coefficient table.
A restored parent for an existing table.
A named extra hoop term.
A named source in trapped water-stretch.
A named converter from F (N m s²) to wall stress (N/m²).
9. Close
Projects 1 to 4 and Appendices A to E are ready for submission. The experiment is the only work still to be drafted. That is the proper shape of the portfolio: method complete, measurement open.On the calculation sheet keep four things only:
- Liquid hoop, pr/t.
- Water-stretch hoop, σ_R = F / Z_R.
- Joint restraint that moves part of those two into moment and shear.
- Duration: live Z_R before set; locked Z_R after set.
If a number cannot be pointed at as one of those four, it is a coefficient. what I had been asked to do.
I listed the work. The historical work is complete. The method is done. The measurement remains.
ace-consultancy.uk 