Academic researchers
Prof. Matthew Gilbert is Director of the Integrated Civil and Infrastructure Research (ICAIR) Centre at the University of Sheffield. He has over thirty years’ experience of carrying out research on the behaviour of masonry arch bridges. He is a Chartered Engineer and is experienced in transferring methods developed in academia to industry. Google Scholar
Prof. Colin Smith is a Professor and Head of the Geotechnical Engineering Group at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield . He has longstanding expertise in physical modelling, including small and full-scale masonry arch bridge studies, has contributed to CIRIA and UIC guidance on masonry arch bridges and is a member of BSI committee B/526/-/3 CEN/TC 250/SC 7, providing UK input to the revision of the geotechnical Eurocode, EC7. Google Scholar
Prof. Vasilis Sarhosis is Professor of Resilient Structures and Infrastructure at the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds. His research focuses on assessing the performance of ageing masonry infrastructure stock and provide detailed and accurate data that will better inform maintenance programmes and asset management decisions. He is a Chartered Engineer and currently chairing the National Scientific Committee on the Analysis and Restoration of Structures of Architectural Heritage (ISCARSAH-UK) which is part of ICOMOS. Google Scholar
Prof. Lorenzo Macorini is a Professor in Structural Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. After gaining his PhD in Structural Engineering at the University of Trieste (Italy), he has been involved in scientific projects funded by both public organisations and industry. From 2008 to 2010, he held a Marie Curie Intra-European Research Fellowship, working on numerical modelling of masonry structures, research activity that he is currently carrying out in the Computational Structural Mechanics Group at Imperial. Google Scholar
Prof. Bassam Izzuddin is a Professor of Computational Structural Mechanics in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. He is a member of the Computational Structural Mechanics Group and has developed advanced modelling tools for a range of structural typologies, including masonry arch bridge structures. He is the originator of the ADAPTIC finite element modelling software.
Prof. Konstantinos Daniel Tsavdaridis is Professor of Structural Engineering and Director of the Steel, Composite and Hybrid Structures group in the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at City, University of London, previously Associate Professor at the University of Leeds. He has extensive experience of large-scale physical testing of structures, including steel-masonry constructions under dynamic loading. He is working predominantly on the development of design guidelines and specifications for the structural Eurocodes. Google Scholar
Dr Linwei He is a Lecturer in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield. He has extensive experience in developing highly efficient numerical methods and user-friendly commercial software tools for use in industry. In addition, he is also capable of leading and designing laboratory experiments to validate numerical results. He joined the ERMABI project to develop efficient limit analysis methods that can very rapidly estimate the load-carrying capacity of masonry structures. Google Scholar
Dr Nicola Grillanda worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield from January-October 2023. He brought extensive experience of developing numerical modelling methods for masonry structures. He has developed efficient limit analysis methods that can very rapidly estimate the load-carrying capacity of masonry structures. Google Scholar
Dr Serena Amodio is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She joined the ERMABI project after obtaining her PhD on ‘Performance of Masonry Arch Bridges: Numerical and Experimental Studies’. In the ERMABI project she is overseeing tests on medium-scale masonry arch bridges.
Bowen Liu is a PhD student in Structural Engineering at the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds. His main PhD supervisor is Prof. Sarhosis; the provisional title of his thesis is ‘High-cycle fatigue behaviour of brick masonry’.
Mohamed El Ashri is a PhD student in the Computational Structural Mechanics Group at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London. He has acquired experience in the numerical modelling of masonry structures during his MSc degree at Imperial. His work is focused on developing high-fidelity finite element models for masonry arch bridges to seek to capture their real behaviour.
Dr Stanyslav Grosman is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. He has extensive experience of modelling masonry structures using advanced analysis tools.
Dr Imrose Muhit originally joined the ERMABI project as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Leeds in January 2022, though joined the University of Teesside in January 2023 as a lecturer. He has extensive experience of characterising concrete and masonry materials and structures. Google Scholar
Industry partners
ADEPT
AECOM
Arup
Bill Harvey Associates
Bridge Owners’ Forum
Canal and River Trust
CIRIA
County Surveyors’ Society Wales
International Union of Railways
Mott Macdonald
National Highways
Network Rail
Ramboll UK
Transport Scotland
WSP Group
ERMABI - Exploiting the Resilience of Masonry Arch Bridge Infrastructure 