Staff profile

Chengjun Fu is a PhD candidate in Geotechnical Engineering at the Department of Engineering, Durham University, UK, since October 2024, under the supervision of Dr Marti Lloret-Cabot, Dr Alexandros Petalas, and Dr Wangcheng Zhang. His doctoral research aims to develop a novel constitutive model capable of capturing the behaviour of silts, sands, and even gap-graded materials. His studies are fully funded by the EPSRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).

Prior to joining Durham University, Chengjun obtained a BEng with First Class Honours in Civil Engineering from the University of Glasgow, UK in 2023. He then pursued an MSc in Geotechnical Engineering (formerly known as: Soil Mechanics) at Imperial College London, UK, graduating in 2024 with a DIC.

Chengjun's passion for geotechnical engineering is evident in his specialised studies and his choice of dissertation topics throughout his academic career. During his undergraduate studies at the University of Glasgow, he collaborated with Professor Simon Wheeler on a dissertation titled "Ground Improvement with Stone Columns: Methods of Calculating Settlement Reduction Factor." In this project, he utilised both analytical method and numerical modelling (using PLAXIS 2D) to investigate settlement reduction factors in ground improvement techniques involving stone columns.

At Imperial College London, Chengjun worked with Dr Fernando Patino-Ramirez (now at Georgia Institute of Technology, USA) on a project titled "Engineering Stress Transmission in Gap-graded Materials." This research employed the Discrete Element Method (DEM) coupled with a MATLAB post-processing code to analyse stress transmission in gap-graded materials. The post-processing code provided a detailed examination of the contact network generated by DEM simulations. Network analysis applied the Maximum Flow Algorithm (MFA) to address the limitations and lack of robustness associated with using average (characteristic) force to partition strong and weak contact forces in mechanical responses. The identified percolating network, fully connected from top to bottom, distinguished between percolating forces that control the mechanical response of granular materials and supporting forces that stabilise the material structure.