Professor Simmons has made a distinguished career from applying dynamical principles to fields of industrial and academic research and development including rheology,
aeroelasticity, aerodynamics and hypersonics. This led to several practical,
patented applications in aircraft flutter testing and in suppressing unwanted
oscillations in electric power lines. Recently he has been associated with the
world-leading free-piston shock tubes developed at the University of Queensland especially in the development of instrumentation and data-handling systems for millisecond events.