This proposal concerns the creation of an internationally leading Centre for doctoral training in sustainable civil engineering. The widest possible definition of sustainability is adopted, with the Centre covering the effective whole life design and performance of major civil engineering infrastructure. This includes the re-appraisal and re-use of existing infrastructure and the opportunities afforded by multiple-use. This sector is widely reported to face major problems recruiting the type, quality and number of people required. The Centre will address the key challenges of fit for purpose, economic viability, environmental impact, resilience, infrastructure inter-dependence, durability as well as the impacts of changes in population, urbanisation, available natural resources, technology and societal expectations. This requires a broad-based approach to research training, effectively integrated across the wide range of disciplines presently encompassed within the civil engineering profession. Very few academic institutions are capable of providing in-depth training across this range of subjects. However, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Imperial College, recently (QS 2013) ranked number one in the world against its competitor departments, is uniquely placed within the UK to achieve exactly this. The Centre will recruit high quality, ambitious engineers. The doctoral training will combine intellectual challenge, technical content and rigor, with focused involvement in the practically important problems presently faced by the civil engineering profession. Advice and guidance from a high-level and broadly-based industrial advisory panel will be important in achieving the latter. Most importantly, the CDT will equip students with an appreciation of the wider context in which their research work is undertaken. The proposed programme is clearly designed to be PhD-PLUS; where the PLUS relates to a clear understanding of the breath of the problem within which their specific research sits, with a strong emphasis on sustainability. This latter component will include the industrial perspective, the societal need, the long term sustainability of the work and its immediate impact. The proposed CDT will make a difference by producing high quality civil engineers who understand global sustainability issues, in the widest possible context, and who have the skills and vision to eventually lead major infrastructure development projects or research programmes. Training will combine intensive taught training modules, group working around Grand Challenge projects in collaboration with industry and high quality research training. Project-based multi-disciplinary collaborative working will be at the core of the CDT training experience, modelling the way leading companies explore design options involving mixed disciplinary teams working together on ambitious projects. Working on a real-world problem, the students will have to interact extensively with others to understand the problem in detail, to develop holistic potential solutions, to assess these solutions and to identify the uncertainties and questions that can only be answered through further research. They will develop skills associated with coping with complexity, being able to make value-based decisions and being confident with interdisciplinary working. They will also be heavily involved in identifying and defining the research problem within the wider multi-faceted project and so will gain a much broader perspective of how specific research developing responsible innovation fits within a large civil engineering project. Overall, this approach is much more likely to develop the additional skills required by industry compared to conventional doctoral civil engineering training.

Our civil infrastructure and built environment must adapt and innovate to address the challenges and opportunities of a low carbon future, of limited space and limited natural resources, economic and societal change and climatic uncertainties. The UK needs a high-level skill base to meet these challenges and opportunities and to maintain its world class leadership position in this sector. 'The need for low carbon infrastructure and buildings will make demands on industry which industry is currently under-equipped to meet. New skills, and different applications of existing skills, ranging from conceptual thinking, to policy, operation and use, through all layers of the supply chain will be required at a time when the construction industry has been badly weakened by the fall in its workload' (BIS report 2010). A prime objective of the CDT is to develop the next generation of Civil Engineering professionals who will provide leadership and are equipped with the required skills to successfully design, construct and manage existing and future infrastructure and buildings. This can only be achieved through strategic Academia-Industry collaboration. This bid for a CDT at the University of Cambridge, led by the Civil Engineering Division, is designed to build upon and channel Cambridge's internationally leading current research, investment and funding in the diverse areas related to Future Infrastructure and Built Environment. Our vision is to develop world-class technically excellent multi-disciplinary Engineers equipped to successfully face current and future infrastructure and built environment challenges to meet societal needs and aspirations. The CDT seeks to address the UK's training needs collectively with our Industrial and Academic partners. The involvement of Industry and practice partners will be integral in producing work of relevance and applicability in the delivery of design and construction of sustainable infrastructure. The CDT's research and training will focus on integrating Cambridge's internationally recognised strengths in structures, geotechnics, materials, construction, sustainable development, building physics and water and waste within the wider context of related engineering disciplines, architecture, the sciences, land economy, manufacturing, business, economics, policy and social science. We will focus on core Civil Engineering technical areas using a multi-disciplinary approach, drawing on underpinning fundamental principles together with appropriate theoretical and experimental work (as evidenced in PhD studies at Cambridge). Our Industrial partners will work with us to co-create and shape the Centre's training programme to meet National skills needs. There will be significant added value from this strong Industry/University partnership. Our new MRes/PhD programme is based on a 1+3 model with a one year Master of Research (MRes) degree with depth and breadth and a multi-disciplinary approach. The MRes is followed by a 3 year PhD in a specialist field. We will also offer a new, 'I+' scheme, in collaboration with two strategic industrial Centre partners; Arup and Laing O'Rourke. The initial broad cohort-based MRes education will cover core advanced Civil Engineering technical topics, research and commercial skills training and expose students to disciplines that impact on future infrastructure and built environment. The PhD research will be of the highest quality. The CDT's inclusive approach to engagement will extend the impact of the CDT and CDT students will act as role models to inspire future generations of Civil Engineering graduates. The CDT will deliver enhanced doctoral training for future leaders and provide a focal point for UK Civil Engineering excellence. CDT graduates will be engineering leaders of the highest calibre whom we can entrust to lead us through the anticipated significant technical and societal challenges facing our UK Construction Industry.

Design limits are frequently based on strain developing in the structure. Although strain measurement is well established, current practice has until recently been restricted to measurement of point-wise strains by means of vibrating wire (VWSG) or metal foil strain gauges and more recently by fibre optics utilising Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG) technology. Where structures interact with soil, (e.g. underground infrastructure such as foundations, tunnels or pipelines) or indeed in the case of a soil structure (road or dam embankments), the state of the structure is not fully understood unless the complete in situ strain regime is known. In the context of monitoring strain in piled foundations, tunnels, pipelines, slopes or embankments, capturing the continuous strain profile is often invaluable to pinpoint localised problem areas such as joint rotations, deformations and non-uniformly distributed soil-structure interaction loads. In this project, we propose to use a unique fibre optics technology called the 'Brillouin optical time-domain reflectometer (BOTDR)'. The novel aspect of this new technology lies in the fact that tens of kilometres of fibre can be sensed at once for continuous distributed strain measurement, providing relatively cheap but highly effective monitoring systems. The system utilizes standard low cost fibre optics (potentially 0.1/m) and the strain resolution can go down to 2 micro strains. We will demonstrate the importance of distributed strain measurements to monitor the performance of building foundations at field sites in the UK and US. Using the distributed strain data, a design tool that optimises the performance of foundations that require rehabilitation, repair and reuse will be developed with industrial collaborators. The project has supports from UK Industrial partners as well US collaborators (National Science Foundation and Northwestern University).

UK construction is a multi-billion pound industry. While it is the most vital cog in the UK economy for creating physical assets, it is widely regarded as slow to innovate. High risks and the significant cost of mistakes promotes a level of conservatism which is much greater compared to other industries. Change therefore tends to be iterative and cautious. Supported by the UK Government through the implementation of various construction initiatives, such as 'Construction 2025' and 'Transforming Construction', the industry is beginning to embrace technology in a transformative way. The technological revolution is already under way for 'above-ground' construction activities, with modular construction and building information modelling being primary examples. One of the biggest obstacles to underground construction making similar gains is uncertainty surrounding how structures interact with soils during construction operations i.e. 'soil-structure interaction' (SSI). Soil-structure interaction plays a critical role in underground construction operations yet the tools that are used to predict them remain remarkably over-conservative. This is because predictive models for SSI are non-existent, over-simplified or are calibrated against measured data obtained from model-scale replicas of the process in the laboratory, essentially representing an 'ideal' soil-structure interface. The work described in this proposal will develop the underpinning engineering science for SSI design applied to underground construction. Laboratory testing and numerical modelling will be used to elucidate the mechanics of soil-structure interface behaviour such as the role of strain level, stress level and time on the development of soil-structure contact stresses and pore water pressures. Intelligent monitoring systems will be developed to measure and monitor soil-structure contact stresses on live construction projects to provide (i) field data for rigorous validation of developed design methods and (ii) real-time, automated feedback to site engineers to inform construction processes and provide 'early warning' of adverse responses. Recent advances in fibre optic sensing will be exploited to develop novel multi-directional contact stress sensors. The new sensors will alleviate limitations associated with traditional transducers such as excessive sensor flexibility (which actually influences the soil stress field the sensors are intended to measure) and immunity to electromagnetic noise and water damage. A multi-directional interface shear apparatus will be developed to validate the contact stress sensors and provide additional insight into the behaviour of an 'ideal' soil-structure interface in the laboratory. The monitoring system will employ machine learning algorithms in the form of Bayesian non-parametrics such that prior data from previous construction projects may be synthesised with newly-acquired data to provide a robust data-driven decision-making process. The monitoring system will be deployed on live construction projects in the UK alongside industry partners. A suite of new design methods tailored specifically for underground construction operations will be developed, informed by the field monitoring, laboratory testing and numerical modelling. Embracing the innovation and technology developed in this project will allow the construction industry to obtain and utilise intelligent and actionable data that can save time and money, and improve construction safety. This will contribute to the UK becoming a global hub for the rapidly growing market for construction-related services throughout the world.

Our infrastructure is central to the economic prosperity of the nation and to the flourishing of a stable, yet dynamic, civil society. Its interconnected strands - the energy, transportation, water, sanitation and communication networks that provide access to services and markets and which underpin the securities of daily life - must be not only affordable and reliable but also resilient against threats such as technological uncertainty, environmental causes, economic and political change, and demographic and societal change unfolding in an increasingly uncertain world. FIBE2 CDT will lead a paradigm shift in the approach to infrastructure resilience through the creation of an inspirational doctoral training programme for talented cohorts from diverse academic and social backgrounds to conduct world-class, cutting-edge and industry-relevant research. Our goal is to develop the infrastructure professionals of the future, equipped with a versatile and cross-disciplinary skillset to meet the most complex emerging challenges, harness the full value of existing infrastructure and contribute effectively to better infrastructure decision-making in the UK. The programme's technical focus will exploit high-level interconnected research themes in advanced infrastructure materials, rethinking design & construction, digitised civil engineering, whole-life performance, built environment and global challenges, along high-level crosscutting themes in emerging technologies, performance to data to knowledge, research across scales, and risk and uncertainty. In FIBE2 CDT we offer a radical rethink to deliver innovation for the cross-disciplinary and interconnected challenges in resilient infrastructure. Our 1+3 MRes/PhD programme proposes a new approach to infrastructure research where students from different disciplines proactively forge new training and research collaborations. FIBE2 is inspired by the paradigm of a 3D 'T' shaped engineer embodying a combination of depth and breadth of knowledge, augmented by our new thinking around cross-disciplinary training and research. High level Infrastructure Engineering concepts will be interlinked and related to the detailed technical fundamentals that underpin them in bespoke core and elective modules. Cohort-based learning will bridge across the wider environmental, societal, economic, business and policy issues within the even broader context of ethics, responsible innovation and ED&I. These depth and breadth elements are interwoven and brought together through problem-based challenges using large-scale cross-disciplinary infrastructure projects. Individual student plans will be carefully crafted to harmonise the specificity of PhD research with the need for expansive understanding of threats and opportunities. The development of Resilient FIBE2 CDT students with strong personal, technical and professional resilience attributes is integral to the FIBE2 approach to training and research. The FIBE2 PhD projects will build upon Cambridge's internationally leading research, investment and funding in the diverse areas related to infrastructure and resilience. Our major strategic initiatives include >£60M funding from EPSRC and industry. Our engagements in UKCRIC, CDBB, Alan Turing and Henry Royce Institutes and our world class graduate training programmes provide an inspirational environment for the proposed CDT. The FIBE2 vision has been co-created with our 27 strategic industry partners from across all infrastructure sectors and nine international academic centre partners across the world, who have pledged over £12M. We will work together to deliver the FIBE2 CDT objectives and add new dimensions to our students' experience. The lasting impact of FIBE2 will be embodied in our students acting as role models to inspire future generations of infrastructure engineers and rising to lead the profession through all the technological and societal challenges facing UK infrastructure.