Research Interests

The structural performance of flexible pipes when buried in trenches, under The influence of trenching on the surrounding buried embankments and in landfills.

infrastructures and overlying road structures forms a parallel area of interest.

Trenchless pipeline technologies, notably ground displacements and ground stability around both horizontal directional drilling (HDD) and microtunnelling for new pipeline construction and HV cable laying, and pipe bursting and pipe splitting

He led an EPSRC Engineering Programme Network in for on-line replacement. Trenchless Technology (NETTWORK, 2000-2004), which spawned a number of initiatives including research into long-distance, shallow-buried HV cable installation and Mapping the Underworld (MTU). He leads the EPSRC-funded MTU programme, which initially (2004-2008) consisted of four inter-linked projects on buried utility location, mapping, data integration and asset tagging, and developed into to develop a multi-sensor geophysical device to detect all buried utility services (www.mappingtheunderworld.ac.uk). This research took on a new focus via a £5.8 million EPSRC Responsive Mode Grant (2013-2017) to research the use of shallow-surface geophysics to assess the condition of road structures, buried pipelines and cables, and the ground that supports them both – Assessing the Underworld. He is CI of a complementary research programme exploring the application of cold atom interferometry to the creation of a very sensitive gravity gradiometer for both shallow and deep subsurface sensing (£2.4 million, GG-TOP) and has a parallel interest in soft ground tunnelling.

Chemical stabilisation of clay soils, encompassing lime modification and stabilisation of clays and contaminated clays, and the use of other additives such

His research has covered both surface and as cement, PFA and blast furnace slag.deep stabilisation techniques, the latter including lime piles and chemical piles, deep mix-in-place techniques and lime slurry pressure injection. More recent research has concentrated on the use of electro-kinetics for soil stabilisation, dewatering liquid wastes and accelerating cast iron pipe corrosion in clay soils.

Road and railway foundations, notably the assessment in situ of stiffness and resistance to permanent deformation, and the chemical treatment of road

In particular he has studied lime- and lime-cement subgrades and railway trackbeds. stabilized subgrade soils cured under realistic environmental conditions.

Loess from different countries, including China, Libya Collapsible soils, notably loess. and the UK (where it is more commonly known as brickearth), has been studied to determine both the degree of collapse and the mechanisms of collapse when it is loaded and wetted. The constituents of the loess and the bonding mechanisms form the primary focus of the research.

The move towards greater sustainability in utility service provision, underground He led one of fifteen space usage, geotechnical processes and urban regeneration.

consortia funded under the first round of grants awarded under the EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE) Programme to use the major Birmingham Eastside (www.esr.bham.ac.uk) redevelopment initiative as a series of case study sites to explore the challenges of introducing more sustainable solutions to the social, environmental and economic problems faced by such developments. He subsequently led the Urban Futures (www.designingresilientcities.co.uk) SUE 2 consortium, which characterised four

alternative extreme-yet-plausible future scenarios and developed a methodology for testing the resilience of engineering interventions put in place today. Since many of these interventions are both advanced in the name of sustainability and have very long design lives, the methodology crucially highlights potentially vulnerability to contextual change. Much of the geotechnical input to these projects has concerned the exploitation of underground space beneath our cities.

Creation of cities and infrastructure systems for the far future. Building on Urban Futures, Chris currently leads the £6.3 million EPSRC Programme Grant entitled Liveable Cities – Transforming the Engineering of Cities to Deliver Societal and Planetary Wellbeing. This multi-university grant is exploring urban metabolisms and how to assess the performance of cities, both now and with radical engineering interventions in place. He is also a Deputy Director of the £3.5 million iBUILD centre researching infrastructure interdependencies and novel business models at the local and regional scales.

He leads the Birmingham Centre for Resilience Research and Education, a research centre in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Birmingham. A member of the UK Government Foresight Future of Cities project (2013-2015), he led the University of Birmingham Policy Commission on Future Urban Living and chairs the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Innovation & Research Panel and Futures Group. He has been awarded grants worth more than £25 million, supervised more than 50 Research Students and Assistants and has published more 200 refereed journal and conference papers.

Current and Recent Research Projects

Chemical Improvement of Clay Soils in situ Using Electrokinetic Processes

Electro-Kinetic Acceleration of Cast Iron Corrosion in Clay Soils

Installation of High Voltage Cables Over Long Distances Using Trenchless Techniques

Mapping the Underworld – Multi-Sensor Device for Buried Utility Services Location

Assessing the Underworld

A Geotechnical Model for the Prediction of Buried Cast Iron Pipe Performance and Failure

Sustainable Urban Redevelopment – Birmingham Eastside

Sustainable Urban Redevelopment – Urban Futures

Transforming the Engineering of Cities to Deliver Societal and Planetary Wellbeing – Liveable Cities

Mapping Artificial Lightscapes – Solutions to Artificial Light Pollution in Cities

i-BUILD – Infrastructure BUsiness models, valuation and Innovation for Local Delivery

GG-TOP – Gravity Gradient - Technologies and Opportunities Programme