Dr. Qaiser Iqbal completed his Ph.D in Geotechnical Engineering, from School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, UK in 2009. His Ph.D studies were funded by UET Peshawar under the project, "Strengthening of main campus Peshawar".
He has now joined the Department of Civil Engineering as an Assistant Professor. His Ph.D thesis was focused on design, analysis and remote monitoring of large cofferdams titled "The Performance of the Diaphragm Type Cellular Cofferdams". The St. Germans pumping station, designed to support the construction of Europe's largest pumping station was analyzed and monitored to study the performance of cofferdams.
The proposed cost of the pumping station was GBP 38.0 million, draining the East England farmlands worth GBP 24 billion. The existing guidelines for the design of these structures are US Army Corps of Engineers design guidelines.
Dr. Qaiser Iqbal's research improved these guidelines and identified the critical failure mechanism under the failure conditions using finite difference code.The results from the numerical study were compared with the field measurements which were acquired from the site with as little as three minutes interval to capture the daily, weekly and seasonal variation in structural response to various construction and natural processes.
The results from the study will be used to update the existing British guidelines i.e. Eurocode 7 and CIRIA Sp95 for which the application for further funding to support a Post Doctorial research is in process. As an expert in Geotechnical modeling and monitoring, Qaiser has also worked on number of other projects. These include; Analysis of displacements resulting from BBC house extension at central London, for the Victoria line tube tunnel for London Underground, Analysis of prop loads for Mayfair car park at Central London and comparison with measured response, and Analysis of stress reduction due to construction of bored pile walls at Ashford, Kent, UK for the construction of Channel Tunnel
Rail Link which provides an undersea fixed link (tunnel) between UK and France.
