Sarada Kanta Sarma is a geotechnical engineer, emeritus reader of engineering

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

and senior research investigator at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. He has developed a method of seismic slope stability analysis which is named after him, the

Sarma method The Sarma method is a method used primarily to assess the stability of soil slopes under seismic conditions. Using appropriate assumptions the method can also be employed for static slope stability analysis. It was proposed by Sarada K. Sarma in th ...

Curriculum

Sarma was initially educated in India, studying

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur and then geotechnical engineering at

Imperial College Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums ...

specialising in earthquake engineering and engineering seismology. He worked under the supervision of professor

Nicholas Ambraseys Nicholas Neocles Ambraseys (19 January 1929 – 28 December 2012) was a Greek engineering seismologist. He was emeritus professor of engineering seismology and senior research fellow at Imperial College London. For many years Ambraseys was consi ...

and obtained his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree in 1968; being the first PhD degree awarded by the Imperial College Engineering Seismology Section (followed by Dimitri Papastamatiou in 1971). His thesis title was "Response characteristics and stability of earth dams during strong earthquakes". He joined the staff in 1967 as a lecturer in Engineering Seismology.

Scientific work

His major research focused on engineering seismology and geotechnical engineering. He specialised in seismic analysis and performance of soil slopes, earth dams and the earthquake resistant design of foundations and design code development and evaluation. He developed a new method of analysing the stability of slopes and dams in seismic conditions and calculating the permanent displacements due to strong shaking. This method, published in the 1970s (several publications of this method are found in 1973, 1975 and 1979) is named after him (

) and it is a special case of a Limit Equilibrium method of geotechnical analysis. It has been extensively used in seismic analysis software for many years, although nowadays modern

finite element analysis Finite element method (FEM) is a popular method for numerically solving differential equations arising in engineering and mathematical models, mathematical modeling. Typical problem areas of interest include the traditional fields of structural ...

software are more widely used for special case studies. The

is called an advanced and rigorous method of static and seismic

slope stability analysis Slope stability analysis is a static or dynamic, analytical or empirical method to evaluate the ''stability of slopes'' of soil- and rock-fill dams, embankments, excavated slopes, and natural slopes in soil and rock. It is performed to assess t ...

. It is called advanced, because it can take account of non-circular failure surfaces. Also, the multi-wedge approach allows for non-vertical slices and irregular slope geometry. It is called a rigorous method, because it can satisfy all the three conditions of equilibrium, horizontal and vertical forces and moments. The Sarma method is nowadays used as a verification to finite element programs (also FE limit analysis) and it is the standard method used for seismic analysis. In recognition of his contribution to earthquake engineering, he has been awarded a number of awards and has been invited to give lectures, serve the academic advisory board of several conferences and provide consulting work and adviceExpert reaction to the earthquake in Haiti
/ref> for various dam projects. Sarma retired from Imperial College in 2004.

References

External links

Sarada K Sarma
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarma, Sarada K. Academics of Imperial College London Alumni of Imperial College London Living people Earthquake engineering Indian seismologists Geotechnical engineers IIT Kharagpur alumni Indian civil engineers Year of birth missing (living people)

Curriculum

Scientific work

See also

References

External links