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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Research

Research in UK universities is assessed and graded by HEFCE every 5 years, in a process called the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). Having achieved the top grading in all previous Exercises (5*), the Department once again did extremely well in the 2008 Exercise, being ranked as the top Department in civil engineering research In the UK, and achieving the best overall score within Imperial College. 

 Wave Tank Fluid Mechanics setion

The Department has three main objectives: to deliver world-leading research, to educate some of the world's most capable students to the highest possible level and to provide state-of-the-art advice to Industry. We aim for a fundamental understanding of the systems, structures and materials underpinning civil engineering and apply this to the solution of important engineering problems. We integrate new theoretical treatments, advances in numerical methods, and laboratory and field experimentation, focussing on the built environment and its inter-relationships with the natural environment and human society. Research is based in seven Sections, falling naturally into four Groups: 

  • Environment, including water (terrestrial, coastal, offshore; resource, hazard and pollution), indoor air and waste management; 
  • Geotechnics, addressing properties and behaviour of the ground, interactions between structures and their foundations, and seismic hazard; 
  • Structures, focussing on the built environment, including structural design, materials, reliability, construction and the management of ageing infrastructure; 

  • Transport, covering travel demand, policy and economics, intelligent systems, safety and risk, railway operations and port logistics.

  • Fluid Mechanics covering fundamental fluid mechanics, offshore and coastal engineering, environmental fluid mechanics, hydraulic structures.

Each is a cohesive unit with the critical mass to sustain a mixture of fundamental investigation, strategic and problem-orientated research and responsiveness to events and opportunities. Extensive links exist, internally between Groups and other Departments, and externally with many national and international collaborators. All staff are active in research, publishing in the leading journals, giving keynote lectures and the key conferences in which results are presented, and being invited to take important posts on technical committees, government and industrial panels.