UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Bahman Sheikh, a doctoral student in civil engineering, was recently awarded a Geosynthetic Institute (GSI) Fellowship grant for his research proposal, titled “Breakwater Design Guidelines for Using Geotextile Tube Technology,” which focuses on the development of a recommended procedure for a geotextile tube breakwaters design.
The $5,000 GSI Fellowship is awarded to researchers whose focus is on innovative geosynthetics areas and development projects. Emphasis is placed on relevant topics of interest to the geosynthetics community.
Sheikh’s doctoral research is focused on numerical modelling of rapid flow-like phenomena in granular soils to investigate landslide mobility and impact forces which are exerted on structures due to these devastating events using the meshless Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method.
“The results of my research are extremely important for engineering risk analyses to map hazardous areas by recognizing landslide sliding paths and deposition zones,” Sheikh said.
For the GSI Fellowship, Sheikh is planning to utilize his expertise in SPH modeling to investigate the impact forces from water waves on geotextile tube breakwater structures. With the knowledge of the impact forces on the whole structure and each individual tube, the limit equilibrium method can then be used to calculate the stability of the breakwater structure. The outcome of Sheikh’s proposed research will be a recommended procedure for computing the required dimensions of each individual tube unit and the percentage of filling volume.
“This prestigious award will provide an invaluable opportunity for me to extend my research in order to reach my academic goals.” Sheikh said.
Sheikh received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in Mashhad, Iran, and his master’s degree in civil engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran.
Upon graduation, he hopes to remain in academia as a civil engineering faculty member or researcher.
“I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my adviser, Dr. Tong Qiu, for his great support during my study at Penn State,” Sheikh said.