Staff
Research Engineer (EngD) Sam is researching the transport of water in living trees to investigate how climatic conditions can cause round wood defects (e.g., shake in broadleaves and cracking in conifers). He will be using a mixture of non-invasive experimental techniques and computer modelling to investigate fracture mechanisms in living trees.
Sam joined Forest Research in 2016 as a Research Engineer. He previously completed an integrated Masters in Physics at the University of Edinburgh. His masters’ project was a study of how changes in the Sun’s intensity might affect regional climate on Earth. To do this, he performed data analysis on the outputs of long running climate models with different solar inputs. His senior honours project was the investigation of a novel method of chromosome formation. He used the molecular dynamics package LAMMPS to perform and analyse simulations of chromatin strands and their self-interaction.
Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3)
Forest Research
Northern Research Station
Roslin
Midlothian EH25 9SY
UK
The soil conditions experienced by a growing tree are reproduced under controlled conditions. Fluid distributions with the tree are visualised using magnetic resonance imaging in order to identify stresses and determine if these are linked to drought cracking and shake.
The origins of shake and drought crack in trees
Multi-Scale MRI/X-ray CT characterisation and Lattice Boltzmann modelling study of moisture movement in wood
Research Engineer
Based within Tree and Wood Properties research group, Sam is undertaking a four-year Engineering Doctorate (EngD) through the University of Surrey’s Centre for Doctoral Training in MiNMaT (Micro and Nano Materials and Technologies). Sam is supervised by Dr Paul McLean at Forest Research and Prof Peter McDonald at the University of Surrey.