• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Logo for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan
  • Strategic Directions
  • News and Events
  • Contact

  • About
    • History
    • Strategic Directions
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
      • CEE DEI Committee
      • DEI Resources
      • Have a concern?
    • Alumni
      • CEE Friends Association
        • CEEFA Board
      • Award Winners
    • Giving
      • Giving Legacy
    • Leadership and Governance
    • Faculty Search
      • Faculty Position in Environmental Engineering
      • Faculty Position in Intelligent Systems
    • Contact
      • Student Services Contacts
      • Master’s Advising Contacts
      • Undergraduate Advising Contacts
  • Undergraduate Studies
    • BSE Degree in Civil Engineering
    • BSE Degree in Environmental Engineering
    • Minor in Civil Engineering
    • Minor in Environmental Engineering
    • FocusCEE
      • Community Policy and Planning
      • Smart Cities
      • Sustainability
    • Undergraduate Opportunities
      • Undergraduate Externship
      • Student Research and Employment
        • CEE SURE/SROP Projects 2023
    • Schedule an Advising Appointment
    • Declare Your Major
    • Careers in CEE
      • What is a Civil or Environmental Engineer?
      • Career Pathways
      • Employers of CEE Graduates
      • How to Recruit CEE Graduates
    • Undergraduate Student Advisory Council
    • Student Life
  • Graduate Studies
    • Master’s Programs
    • PhD Programs
      • PhD Mentoring Framework
      • PhD Candidate Roster
    • Pelham Scholars Program
    • Online Learning
      • Construction Engineering and Management MasterTrack™
    • Admissions Information
      • International Applicants
      • Sequential Undergraduate/Graduate Studies (SUGS) Applicants
    • Graduate Handbook
    • Graduate Student Advisory Council
    • Student Life
  • People
    • Faculty
      • Affiliated Faculty
      • Core Faculty
      • Emeritus Faculty
    • Postdocs
    • Researchers
    • Staff
      • Administrative
      • Finance
      • Human Resources
      • IT & Web
      • Laboratory Technicians
      • Purchasing
      • Student Services
  • Research
    • New Grants
    • Civil Infrastructure Systems
      • Construction Engineering and Management
      • Geotechnical Engineering
      • Intelligent Systems
      • Next Generation Transportation Systems
      • Structural and Materials Engineering
    • Environment and Water Resources
      • Ecohydrology and Hydraulic Engineering
      • Energy and Clean Technology
      • Environmental Chemistry and Soil Physics
      • Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology
    • Smart Infrastructure Finance
    • Urban Collaboratory
    • Facilities
      • Advanced Materials Research
      • Cementitious Composites
      • Center of Excellence in Bridges and Structures
      • Computational Community Resilience
      • Computational Structural Simulation
      • Construction Engineering Lab
      • Geotechnical Engineering Labs
      • Intelligent Structural Technology
      • Next Generation Infrastructure
      • Next Generation Transportation Systems Research Facilities
      • Pavement Research Center of Excellence
      • Structural Engineering Lab
  • Resources
    • Shipping
    • Purchasing
      • Purchasing Frequently Asked Questions
    • Reimbursement
    • IT Resources
    • Lab Safety
      • Lab Safety Basics
      • Minimum Training Requirements
    • Lab Requests and Procedures
    • Room Requests
    • Faculty Intranet
    • Strategic Directions
    • News and Events
    • Contact

Structural and Materials Engineering

home_outline/Research/Civil Infrastructure Systems/Structural and Materials Engineering
  • New Grants
  • Civil Infrastructure Systems
    • Construction Engineering and Management
    • Geotechnical Engineering
    • Intelligent Systems
    • Next Generation Transportation Systems
    • Structural and Materials Engineering
  • Environment and Water Resources
  • Smart Infrastructure Finance
  • Urban Collaboratory
  • Facilities

faculty

Enrica Bernardini

Sherif El-Tawil

Evgueni Filipov

Will Hansen

Ann Jeffers

Victor C. Li

Jerome P. Lynch

Jason P. McCormick

Jeff Scruggs

Seymour M.J. Spence

A machine applies pressure to a slab of concrete

The ever-increasing world population and growth of urban environments has resulted in an unprecedented number of structures and infrastructure systems being built in regions that are exposed to natural hazards such as earthquakes, hurricanes, wind storms, flooding and fire. The increased risk associated with building in these areas, coupled with society’s demand for an enhanced level of performance of the built environment, calls for the development of new multi-disciplinary analysis, design and fabrication approaches for a wide spectrum of structural systems and materials.

Meanwhile, the building revolution of the last century has resulted in a huge inventory of deteriorating structures and infrastructure systems, the continued usability of which must be guaranteed for an economically and environmentally sustainable future. Investment in innovative sensing systems for structural health monitoring and new technologies for the effective retrofitting of existing structures is therefore crucial. The greater awareness of the world’s limited resources and the desire for state-of-the-art systems requires new materials to be adopted in design and retrofitting of structures. This realization is spearheading efforts towards the development of new higher-performing materials.

The Structural and Materials Engineering Group brings together a unique mix of experimental and computational modeling expertise over a wide range of scales to find solutions to these challenges. In reaching these goals, the Group relies on state-of-the-art computational simulation facilities as well as some of the nation’s most versatile and best equipped large-scale structural engineering, advanced sensing, materials and concrete pavement laboratories.

Research areas of interest in the Structural and Materials Engineering Group include:

  • Earthquake and wind resistant design of structural systems composed of reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete, steel and high performance fiber reinforced cementitious composites
  • Behavior of buildings and bridges under extreme loading conditions generated by man-made and natural hazards
  • Evaluation and improvement of new and existing highway bridges for structural safety and remaining life
  • Design and development of ultrahigh performance concrete and high-performance, fiber-reinforced cementitious composites for sustainable infrastructure
  • Mechanistic evaluation of properties of concrete pavement to improve their durability and expected service life
  • Design and validation of smart structure technologies for the structural health monitoring of civil structure and infrastructure systems
  • Structural fire engineering of building systems subject to stationary and traveling fires
  • Risk and reliability frameworks for the rational assessment of structural performance with the aim of promoting resilience in design
  • Structural and topology optimization of structural and material systems subject to uncertainty
  • Design and development of deployable structures that reduce the impact of natural disasters or assist in post disaster recovery
  • Design of adaptable infrastructure systems that self-assemble on-site, adapt to changing loading conditions and reconfigure for alternative uses
  • Fabrication, design and validation of 3D printed architectural scale structures

Graduate Programs

Learn More

Apply

Graduate Admissions

Facilities

Structural Engineering Laboratory

Footer

Logo for Michigan Engineering at the University of Michigan

  • Giving
  • News and Events
  • Contact
  • Sign up for our newsletter
  • U-M Engineering Home
  • Strategic Vision
  • Graduate and Professional
  • Undergraduate
  • U-M Engineering Research News
  • U-M Home

  • Giving
  • News and Events
  • Contact
  • Sign up for our newsletter

© 2023 The Regents of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA Privacy Policy | Non-Discrimination Policy | Campus Safety

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube