Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)
The Netherlands
TU Delft is the largest and oldest Dutch public technological university.
It is structured into eight faculties and several research institutes. More than 3300 scientific research and teaching staff train over 20000 students (undergraduate and postgraduate).
The Geo-Engineering Section of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences aims to improve the fundamental understanding of materials and processes in the shallow subsurface and develop fundamental knowledge and innovative technology which is essential to address current societal issues and enable engineering for:
- Safe constructions in, on and with ground materials (with a particular focus on soft soils),
- Minimising the risk and impact of geo-hazards,
- Increasing the lifetime of existing soil structures (both manmade and natural),
- Sustainable use of the sub-surface.
The section has excellent experimental laboratory facilities and involves a strong multi-disciplinary research team dedicated to the complex, coupled, non-linear and heterogeneous nature of geo-materials. This includes expertise in element testing, instrumentation, physical modelling, constitutive modelling, coupled processes, and numerical and probabilistic modelling.
Meet Our Team
Dr. Miguel Angel Cabrera
Assistant Professor of Experimental Soil Mechanics at the section of Geo-Engineering at TU Delft, working in the physical modelling of land instabilities and soil-structure interaction systems. Miguel is a member of the ISSMGE technical committees on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (TC104) and Slope Stability in Engineering Practice (TC208).
Miguel’s research is in the area of geotechnical engineering with a focus on complex, multiphase, geophysical and environmental flows, and soil-fluid-structure interaction systems. His interests lie in linking the fundamental understanding of such physical processes with the current and future challenges of the natural, living and built environment. Towards this end, he develops and use a combined approach between physical modelling, advanced measuring techniques, and numerical modelling.
Miguel holds a Bachelor on Civil Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2009) and a Master in Geotechnical Engineering from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia (2011). In 2016, Miguel received his PhD from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Austria, working on the simulation of granular flows in rotating systems and sponsored by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship through the MUMOLADE project. From 2016 to 2022 Miguel was appointed as Assistant and then Associate Professor at Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Since August 2022, Miguel joined the section of Geo-Engineering at TU Delft.
Dr. Stefano Muraro
Assistant Professor of Experimental Soil Mechanics at the section of Geo-Engineering of Delft University of Technology. His research focuses on the comprehension of the physical processes ruling the multiphase behaviour of soils and on the proposal of innovative measures to mitigate complex challenges in deltaic areas such as environmental and anthropogenic loads. A versatile research methodology which combines advanced laboratory testing and numerical modelling is adopted to serve geotechnical applications as slopes stability, earth retaining structures and soil-structure interaction. During his PhD at Delft University of Technology and PostDoc at Politecnico di Milano, Dr Stefano Muraro investigated the geotechnical behaviour of dykes and embankments founded on soft soils and in particular on peat.