Emerging Trends of Advanced Composite Materials in Structural Applications

Dr. S.B. Singh is P.E. (Civil) from state of Michigan, USA and Post-doctorate (LTU), USA, Chartered Engineer (INDIA), fellow of Institution of Engineers (FIE), PhD (IIT Kanpur), and currently Professor of Civil Engineering Department at Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. His current areas of research are development of design guidelines for Functionally Graded Composite materials and Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) reinforced prestressed concrete structures in particular and composite materials & structures in general including nonlinear finite element modeling. Prof. Singh is also the member of ICI, ACI, ASCE, and ISTE in addition to being Associate Member of ACI-440 committee on FRP as member of ACI. He has 32 years of teaching and research experience. He has been Indian Team Leader for prestigious UKIERI (UK-India Education Research Initiatives) collaborative research project involving 10 institutions (eight from India and two from UK) on sustainable concrete Infrastructure.  He is also member of various committees and serving as editorial board member of 4 Journals. He is representing BITS Pilani on committee of Ireland-India Concrete Research Initiatives (IICRI). He has 222 publications to his credit which include more than 183 research papers (91 Journals plus 93 conference papers), 5 books [two text books, one online book, and two edited books], 13 research reports and 14 book chapters, 02 theses in addition to being Who is Who of various organizations. Prof. Singh has also filed 03 Indian patents. Furthermore, Prof. Singh has had an opportunity to teach in some of the best universities in India and USA such as at MNNIT Allahabad, NIT Warangal, BITS Pilani, and Lawrence Technological University (LTU), Southfield, Michigan, USA. Prof. Singh has delivered many Keynote lectures at national and International conferences and seminar along with helping the other technical educations as advisory member for their professional development. He has also organized (Role: as Chairman) various International Conferences such as the First and Second International Conferences on Advances in Concrete, Structural, and Geotechnical Engineering (ACSGE-09, ACSGE-2018) and UKIERI Seminars, and Network Concrete Seminars in addition to being organizing committee member of various national and international conferences.  Also, he acted as Convenor of 1^st International Conference on Rehabilitation and Retrofitting of Structures, held at Mumbai in association with Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC), Mumbai, ASTR, VJTI, Mumbai, June 19-20, 2019.  Most recently, he organized International Webinar on Smart Cities: Beyond the Pandemics at BITS Pilani and was invited by Construction Industry and Development Council (an Appex Body of Niti Ayog, Government of India) to deliver expert online lecture at ICW 2020 at New Delhi as well as Video Lectures.  He has best paper award at the International Conference on Advances in Civil and Environmental Engineering held at Penang, Malaysia.  In his 32 years of teaching and research experience, he has spent 8 and half years as active faculty member at MNIT Allahabad, three and half years at IIT Kanpur as QIP PhD Research Scholar, 5 years as Postdoctoral Research Engineer and Adjunct Faculty member at Lawrence Technological University (LTU), Southfield, Michigan (USA), one year as Visiting faculty member at NIT Warangal, and 15 years at BITS Pilani, working currently as Professor in Department of Civil Engineering.  Prof. Singh has executed various research projects sponsored by DST, CSIR, UGC, UKIERI, KK Birla Academy and Aditya Birla Group. Recently, as Co-PI he has been awarded US-2020 partnership award with Prof. Venkatesh Kodur (MSU) as PI .  Also, his project under US-India Education Foundation (USIEF) Fulbright Specialist Program has been selected to host US Specialist at BITS Pilani for academic year starting August 01, 2021.  Based on nomination on national level, Prof. Singh has been awarded with the “Best Academician of the Year -2020,” by the honourable Governor of Rajasthan, Shri Kalraj Mishra at the “Eminent Engineers Award event’ organized by Institution of Engineers (India) at Rajasthan State Center, Jaipur on Engineers Day (15^th September, 2020).  Most recently, on Invitation from Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC) an Apex body of NITI Ayog, Prof. Singh has joined the eminent group of Faculty members of CIDC Academy of Construction Engineering (CACE). Furthermore, Prof. Singh has been selected for Bharat Shiksha Gaurav Puraskar and Certificate of Excellence by KTK Outstanding Achievers and Education Foundation, New Delhi. Other achievements and professional activities of Prof. Singh can be seen in  his CV (detailed bio-data) posted on his personal website linked to BITS Pilani on:   Web Page: http://universe.bits-pilani.ac.in/pilani/sbsingh/profile 

Madappa V. R. Sivasubramanian is Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at National Institute of Technology, Puducherry, Karaikal, India. His research interest is structural engineering including structural health monitoring, structural assessment, repair and rehabilitation of structures using advance composite materials.

H. Chawla, (B.E. (Kurushetra, 2010), M.E. (BITS Pilani, 2012), Ph.D. (BITS Pilani, 2018)), is currently working as Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, Punjab, India. He has published over 25 papers in international conferences and peer-reviewed journals. He has teaching and research experience of 7 years. His research interest includes behaviour of FRP-concrete hybrid beams, modelling of structures in FEM software (ABAQUS), use of waste materials in concrete and FRP laminates, and FRP bridges.