Research Centre for Civil Engineering Structures

Professor Andreas J. Kappos

The key objective is to develop a method for designing bridges with improved performance under extreme dynamic loadings, such as strong earthquakes. The basic idea is that varying the boundary conditions can lead to an improved structural performance under dynamic actions. The specific goal is to substitute current bridge joints that have a fixed width with variable-width joints, which initially can be either closed or open depending on their length and the serviceability requirements, while under seismic loading their width is optimised either with a one-off adjustment, or continuously varying through semi-active control. Proper devices for adjusting the movement of the bridge deck have to be developed as part of the project. The performance sought by varying the joint gap depends on the design objectives, i.e. whether durability or extreme dynamic loads are expected to govern the design.

Professor Ashraf Ayoub

Nano-engineered concrete has emerged as an efficient multifunctional construction material that can offer many advantages such as higher strength and stiffness, enhanced ductility, and self health monitoring. The behaviour of such material under thermal loads is still not well understood. The project will aim at evaluating the performance of nano-engineered concrete structures under elevated temperature using experimental and multi-scale analytical techniques.

Dr Agathoklis Giaralis

Vibration-based structural health monitoring (V-SHM) techniques are widely used for design verification, condition assessment, and damage detection of large-scale civil engineering structures. V-SHM involves the sampling and post-processing of response acceleration signals from vibrating structures excited by environmental dynamic loads such as those due to wind, traffic, sea-waves, and earthquakes. This project builds on recent mathematical and algorithmic developments, achieved through an EPSRC funded proposal, to enable cost-efficient V-SHM by acquiring acceleration measurements at sampling rates significantly below the Nyquist rate. This consideration supports the use of wireless sensor (WSs) for V-SHM having low energy consumption and improved wireless data transmission reliability. The project involves multi-disciplinary analytical and computational work to extend the range of applicability of the current sub-Nyquist V-SHM techniques to challenging scenarios including the case of non-stationary acceleration response signals encountered in the monitoring of wind turbines and the case of earthquake-induced damage detection and characterization. Excellent knowledge of MATLAB and of finite element software are required as well as a solid background on structural dynamics which will extend to sparse signal acquisition, modelling, and processing techniques.

Dr Agathoklis Giaralis

This project is the continuation of an EPSRC funded proposal to enable smart, lightweight, and sustainable civil engineering structures, such as tall buildings and long-span (foot-)bridges, through the consideration of inertial and regenerative devices with varying properties to meet serviceability limit state requirements. These requirements govern the design of modern slender structures which have become ever more susceptible to excessive vibrations due to dynamic loads caused by the action of wind and traffic. The project considers coupling inertial dampers, such as the tuned mass-damper-inerter (TMDI) with energy harvesting enabled electromechanical motors in novel topologies to achieve simultaneous vibration suppression and power generation in slender structures subject to operational loads. The project involves multi-disciplinary analytical and computational work to advance the current state-of-art by integrating the above devices into performance-based structural design allowing for varying the overall structural properties based on the anticipated level and nature of the external loads as well as based on the sought structural performance. Excellent knowledge of MATLAB and of finite element software are required as well as a solid background on structural dynamics which will extend to electromechanical coupling and control.

Dr Brett McKinley

Working under the newly formed Centre of Excellence in Temporary Works and Construction Method Engineering sponsored by the Temporary Works Forum, the project is aimed at determining the true distribution of load during construction when backprops are used to provide temporary support to reinforced concrete structures.  Current guidance is understood to be conservative and more accurate and applicable measurement of loads in backprops, along with improved understanding of the behaviour of the structure, is required to better inform industry.

Dr Tatyana Micic

Many structures, such as bridges, buildings, towers and masts are critical for the society so it is important to take advantage of new technologies to ensure that they are safe.  This project will develop modern application to include disparate sources of information about existing structures such as sensors, non-destructive testing, measurements, etc. to quantify structural performance.

Dr Alfredo Camara

Nuclear power plants are of crucial importance to the national energy management, economy and safety. In particular, containment vessels represent a vital part of these infrastructures as they are the ultimate barrier to prevent leakage from the reactor in case of an accident. The failure of one of these vessels would pose an immense risk to society and yet the current analysis methods routinely ignore possible degradation and ageing effects in the concrete and the steel. Understanding the long-term response of containment vessels under extreme conditions such as strong ground motions and the loss of coolant is essential. The goal of this research is to develop a multi-hazard analysis framework in which the eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) will be used to describe crack patterns in the concrete and nonlinear static and dynamic analyses will be conducted to obtain recommendations for the safe design of containment vessels. The successful PhD candidate in this project should have experience in Finite Element modelling and a solid background in structural dynamics and prestressed concrete design.

Dr Panagiotis Mergos and Prof. Andreas J. Kappos

Structural optimisation techniques are widely used in routine design of aeronautical, mechanical and naval structural systems. In routine civil engineering practice, however, optimum structural design is pursued either with the aid of the designer’s experience or a manual trial-and-error process. For complex problems, these approaches are often inadequate and drive to uneconomical designs. This research will develop a novel, automated framework for the optimum design of reinforced concrete buildings in earthquake prone regions that maximises resilience and sustainability of these structural systems.

Dr Panagiotis Mergos

Safe structural design requires that demands in terms of forces and deformations remain below respective structural capacities. Often, structural capacities cannot be determined by numerical methods and experimental testing is required. For structures subjected to cyclic loads, such as the ones imposed by earthquakes, quasi-static cyclic tests are typically employed, where test specimens are subjected to predefined force and/or deformation histories of demands, named loading protocols.

In many cases, existing loading protocols are not representative of anticipated seismic demands and thereby may either underestimate structural capacities leading to uneconomical designs or overestimate capacities driving to catastrophic failures. This research aims at developing loading protocols that reflect accurately seismic demands of various structural systems (e.g. reinforced concrete, masonry and timber buildings) in order to produce realistic estimates of their structural capacities.