Professor of Civil Engineering

Academic Division: Civil Engineering

Research group: Geotechnical and Environmental (Head of Group)

Telephone: +44 1223 7 68053

Email: mspg1@eng.cam.ac.uk

Research interests

Professor Madabhushi’s research focuses on earthquake risk mitigation of geotechnical and structural systems. His research has led to a better understanding of the response of these systems under extreme earthquake loading and soil liquefaction. He has participated in many post-earthquake missions to observe and understand the failures of structural and geotechnical systems. His passion is to use the following modelling techniques to develop a fundamental understanding of the failure mechanisms. He has published to date 3 books, 105 journal papers and 245 papers in international conferences and workshops.

Centrifuge Modelling

Professor Madabhushi developed several earthquake actuators that simulate earthquake loading on centrifuge models in-flight. He as an active interest in developing specialist model containers, data acquisitions systems, imaging techniques to decipher the soil behaviour during and after earthquake loading. Using these, a wide variety of problems from pile foundations to underground structures were investigated over the course of nearly two decades.

Numerical Modelling

Professor Madabhushi has an active interest in using finite element based numerical methods to simulate earthquake related problems. He has investigated the behaviour of various types of retaining walls, tunnels and other structures and compared the numerical predictions with the centrifuge test data.

Strategic themes

Energy, transport and urban infrastructure

Cyclic behaviour of monopile foundations for offshore wind turbines; novel foundations for floating offshore wind systems; seismic resistance of infrastructure systems for transport; liquefaction vulnerability of existing urban infrastructure.

Manufacturing, design and materials

Liquefaction resistance of bridge foundations in collaboration with Mott MacDonald; offshore monopile foundations in collaboration with Dong Energy, RES.

Bioengineering

Biomechanics of bone implants; granular material behaviour in revision hip replacement arthoplasties.

Complex, resilient and intelligent systems

Earthquake risk to existing buildings and their foundations; seismic risk mitigation modelling using numerical and physical testing methods.

Research projects

• Seismic Engineering Research Infrastructure For European Synergies – SERIES (EU funded FP7 project)
• Cyclic behaviour of offshore monopile foundations (EPSRC)
• Development of a servo-hydraulic earthquake actuator (EPSRC)
• Satellite imaging of post-earthquake reconnaissance (EPSRC)
• UK-NEES Networking of earthquake research facilities in the UK (EPSRC)
• RELUIS – Earthquake response of tunnel structures (Consortium of Italian Universities and Industry)
• NEMISREF - Novel methods for earthquake risk mitigation (EU funded FP6 project)

Teaching activity

• Part IB Integrated labs
• 3D8 Environmental Geotechnics & Building Physics
• 4D6 Dynamics in Civil Engineering
• 4D14 Waste containment systems
• 5R5 Advanced Geotechnical Modelling methods
• Prof Madabhushi is also a Director of Studies in Girton College & carries out undergraduate admission interviews at Girton and in India (including the Manmohan Singh scholarships).

Research opportunities

Prof Madabhushi is interested in taking research students who are keen on earthquake geotechnical engineering area, foundations for offshore systems and biomechanics.

Other positions

• Member of British Geotechnical Association Committee
• Life Fellow of Indian Geotechnical Society
• Past Chairman of EEFIT
• Life Fellow of Cambridge Philosophical Society