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Dr Kim Littlewood

Profile summary

  • Regional Academic Staff
  • Staff Tutor in Engineering and Innovation
  • Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
  • School of Engineering & Innovation
  • kim.littlewood

Professional biography

Dr Kim Littlewood BA (Open), BSc, MSc, PhD, DIC, FHEA, CEng, MICE

Kim Littlewood is an Open University graduate twice over, with both a BA Hons (Open) and a BSc.  A Chartered Civil Engineer (CEng MICE), with a PhD from Imperial College (1999), she has worked across the Civil Engineering industry in a range of roles.  She has 30 years’ experience in Civil Engineering, with a mixture of industrial and academic experience. 

Academic experience includes lecturing at RMCS, Plymouth University and PDRA at Imperial College, and industrial experience has included bridge inspection, management and maintenance for British Rail, and working as a project manager for the Environment Agency, delivering projects with a value up to £20 million. 

Kim has a particular interest in helping others to achieve Institution Membership at various grades, and she has acted as a Delegated Engineer (DE) and Supervising Civil Engineer (SCE) whilst working in industry.

Kim is a Staff Tutor in engineering, and she also tutors on a range of undergraduate modules

Research interests

PhD:  1996 – 1999 PhD entitled  “Movement of Gross Solids in Small Bore Sewers” at Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine carried out under the Postgraduate Training Partnership (PTP) Scheme.

PhD project was an investigation into the movement of gross solids in small bore sewers, and the effect of reduced water flow.  It resulted in an innovative computer model of solid movement under intermittent flow, coded in FORTRAN, which has been verified by an extensive programme of practical experiments.  Results derived from this model have been used in the WRc review of Part H of the Building Regulations.

Principal Published Works, Conference Papers and WRc Reports Produced

  1. BUTLER, D., LITTLEWOOD, K. and ORMAN, N. Forces on sanitary solids in small sewers. International Conference on Sewer Processes, Madeira, November 2004.
  2. BUTLER, D., LITTLEWOOD, K. and ORMAN, N. A model for the movement of large solids in small sewers.  International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling: UDM ‘04, Dresden, September, 2004.
  3. LITTLEWOOD, K & BUTLER, D Movement mechanisms of gross solids in intermittent flow. Water Science & Technology, 47, 4, 45-50,2003.
  4. LITTLEWOOD, K. & BUTLER, D Influence of diameter on the movement of gross solids in small pipes.  Proc. International Conference on Sewer Operation and Maintenance SOM 2002, Bradford, November 2002.
  5. DIGMAN, C.J., K. LITTLEWOOD, D. BUTLER, K. SPENCE, D.J. BALMFORTH, J. DAVIES, M. SCHÜTZE A model to predict the temporal distribution of gross solids loading in combined sewerage systems. Proc. 9th Intl. Conf. on Urban Storm Drainage, Portland, Oregon, September, 2002
  6. SPENCE, K., BALMFORTH D., BUTLER, D., SAUL, A., DAVIES, J., LITTLEWOOD, K., SCHUETZE, M., DIGMAN, C. & HOULDSWORTH, J. Who says looks do not matter? Water and Waste Treatment. Sept., 2002.
  7. McDermott, R., Solan, B., McCord, S., & Littlewood, K. (2019). Irish Water and Scottish Water: A Comparison. The Journal of Water Resource and Protection , 11, 1064-1089. https://doi.org/10.4236/jwarp.2019.118063

https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/publications/irish-water-and-scottish-water-a-comparison

  1. McDermott, R. , Strong, W. , Griffiths, P. , Littlewood, K. and Doherty, M. (2020) Smart Sewers 1: Sewer Configuration at Rural Houses. Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 12, 825-834. doi: 10.4236/jwarp.2020.129048.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=103287