The British Geotechnical Association (BGA) gives out annually the best Dissertation in any MSc or MEng program in the UK. The 2014 prize was awarded to Srikanth Madabhushi for his MEng dissertation titled “Investigating the Deformation Mechanisms beneath Shallow Foundations” supervised by Dr Stuart Haigh, who is a Senior Lecturer at the Department.

The prize was announced during the XVI European Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering conference held in Edinburgh and was presented to Srikanth at the Institution of Civil Engineers, London on Wednesday 9^th Dec 2015 by Prof Stephan Jefferis, Chairman of the BGA.

The dissertation was cited for experimental work showing the changes in deformation mechanism as the foundation loads change from Serviceability Limit State to Ultimate Limit State. This observation led to a theoretical solution by mixing elastic field and plastic Prandtl field. This research has recently been published in the prestigious Geotechnique Journal. Srikanth is currently pursuing a PhD in the Department under the supervision of Dr Haigh on the topic of “Multi-hazard protection using double implant retaining walls” at the Schofield Centre.