Emeritus Professor David Chapman BSc(Hons), DIS, PhD, CEng, MICE, FHEA

Engineering and Physical Sciences
Emeritus Professor of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0) 121 414 5150
Fax: +44 (0) 121 414 3675
Email: d.n.chapman@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Civil Engineering
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

David Chapman is Professor of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering. He is also the Technical Director for the National Buried Infrastructure Facility at the University of Birmingham, which is part of the UK wide government funded project UKCRIC (UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure & Cities).

His research interests lie in the area of underground construction (from pipelines to tunnels). He has published over 100 papers in both refereed journals and conferences. He has an international reputation in the area of trenchless pipeline installation and renewal, and has conducted research into tunnel construction in soft ground and how to better understand the performance of subsurface infrastructure using geophysical sensors.

He has been involved with numerous grants from EPSRC and industry. In particular, he is currently co-investigator on the multi-disciplinary, multi-university EPSRC funded Assessing the Underworld project, and also co-investigator on the multi-disciplinary, multi-university EPSRC funded project Self Repairing Cities, as well as an investigator on an industry led project investigating Smart Leakage Detection of Pipes.

He has been lecturing for 25 years in the area of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering. He is also the co-author of a book ‘Introduction to Tunnel Construction’ aimed at MSc and MEng students or early career engineers.

Qualifications

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, 2007
Membership of the Institution of Civil Engineers (MICE) and Chartered Engineer status (CEng), 1996
PhD in Geotechnical Engineering, Loughborough University, 1993
BSc (Hons) in Civil Engineering, Loughborough University, 1988
DIS (Diploma of Industrial Studies), Loughborough University, 1988

Biography

David Chapman qualified with a first class BSc(Hons) degree in Civil Engineering in 1988. He then went on to work in industry as a structural engineer (Oscar Faber Consulting Engineers), before returning as a research associate at Loughborough University for three years investigating ground movements associated with trenchless technologies for installing and renewing pipelines. As a result of this research he was awarded a PhD in 1993.

After spending six years as a lecturer at the University of Nottingham (1992-1998), he moved to the University of Birmingham as a lecturer in 1998. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2002, Reader in 2008 and Professor in 2016.

He became a member of the Institution of the Civil Engineers (MICE) in 1996 and also a Chartered Engineer (CEng).

He is an associate editor of the journal Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology. He has also been a member of the Géotechnique Advisory Panel (2010-2013).

He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Teaching

Teaching Programmes

MSc in Geotechnical Engineering
MSc in Geotechnical Engineering and Management
BEng and MEng in Civil Engineering

More specifically my current teaching includes:

Undergraduate

Second Year Soil Mechanics

MSc level

Introduction to Tunnel Construction
Ground Investigation
Foundation Engineering

I also supervise research projects at both undergraduate and MSc level.

Postgraduate supervision

Dr Chapman is interested in supervising doctoral research in areas including:

Trenchless technology for pipeline installation and renewal
Geotechnical controls on buried pipeline behaviour and leakage
Soil-structure interaction problems related to ground movements resulting from soft ground tunnelling
Influence of different soils on geophysical sensing technologies when locating buried utilities or archaeology
Novel sensing technologies for infrastructure monitoring (pipes, tunnels, etc), such as Smart Pipes technology

Research

David Chapman is Professor of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering. He is also the Technical Director for the National Buried Infrastructure Facility currently being developed at the University of Birmingham, which is part of the UK wide government funded project UKCRIC (UK Collaboratorium for Research in Infrastructure & Cities).

His research interests lie in the area of underground construction (from pipelines to tunnels). He has published over 150 papers in both refereed journals and conferences. He has an international reputation in the area of trenchless pipeline installation and renewal, and has conducted research into tunnel construction in soft ground and how to better understand the performance of subsurface infrastructure using geophysical sensors.

He has been lecturing for 27 years in the area of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering. He is also the co-author of a book ‘Introduction to Tunnel Construction’ (now in its second edition) aimed at MSc and MEng students or early career engineers.

Research Themes

Mapping and Assessing the Underworld
Smart Pipes (and other buried infrastructure monitoring)
Trenchless Technology
Ground Movements Associated with Underground Construction
Buried Infrastructure

Research Activity

Mapping the Underworld and Assessing the Underworld

The Mapping the Underworld (MTU) initiative was first initiated in 1996 when the term ‘Body Scanner in the Street’ was coined. This was followed with an EPSRC ideas factory in 2004 and the feasibility project started in 2005 investigating the abilities and limitations of a range of locating technologies to locate all buried utilities in all ground conditions, look at alternative technologies as well as investigate the mapping and data fusion of utility records. The feasibility study showed that a number of technologies have the potential to locate buried assets when used in combination and also combined with some information on the soil to optimise any survey strategies. This lead to the MTU Phase 2 Location project (2009-2012) with the focus of this project on the development of a multi-sensor device to locate all buried utilities in all ground conditions using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), low frequency electromagnetics, vibro-acoustics and leakage current fields.

This led to a further project called Assessing the Underworld (2013-2018), where the objective has been not only to locate buried infrastructure, but also to assess its condition using geophysical methods. Due to the importance of the ground in supporting the surface infrastructure (e.g. roads) and the buried infrastructure (e.g. pipes), at Birmingham we have focused on assessing changes in the ground using geophysical methods.

The MTU initiative is a 25 year vision with both condition assessment using a multi-sensor device and sustainable use of the underground infrastructure being addressed in the future.

Smart Pipes (and other buried infrastructure monitoring)

The interest in monitoring and mapping of underground infrastructure led to a number of projects investigating ways to make infrastructure ‘smarter’ using sensors, or at least to collect more data from buried infrastructure to allow better management. Such systems are called underground wireless sensor systems. One such sensor system for leak detection in pressurised water pipes developed at Birmingham is currently being taken forward as an industry led Innovate UK project.

Trenchless Technology, Ground Movements Associated with Underground Construction and Buried Infrastructure

Research in these areas has been a continuous theme of my research since my PhD research in this area. Projects have included:

Investigating microtunnelling technology for boulder clays
Remote positional control of steerable moles
Ground movements associated with pipe splitting techniques
Effects on tunnelling ground movements on existing tunnels
Investigating horizontal directional drilling and impact moling
Effect of tunnel-induced ground movements on existing tunnel linings
Network in trenchless technology
OFSTUNN: Optical Fibre Sensors for Tunnel monitoring
Feasibility study on pipe failures in wet clay
Tunnel installations and operating systems for buried high voltage cables
Ground movements associated with twin tunnel constructions in clay
Effect of soil conditions on leakage from cast iron water mains
Resilience through innovation: critical local transport and utility infrastructure

Other activities

Associate editor of the journal Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology
Member of the Geotechnique Advisory Panel (2010-2012)
Invited member of the Trenchless Engineering International Research Advisory Committee (TEIRAC)
Member of the ITA/AITES (International Tunnelling Association) Working Group 2 on ‘Research’
Member of the British Geotechnical Association
Member of the British Tunnelling Society

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Yensri, P, Faramarzi, A, Metje, N & Chapman, DN 2026, 'Numerical Investigation of Bored Tunnelling Effects on Pile-Supported Superstructures', International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics. https://doi.org/10.1002/nag.70275

Luo, S, De Risi, R, De Luca, F, Mylonakis, G, Harkness, J, Milne, D, Williams, D, Fiorentino, G, Metje, N, Chapman, D, Powrie, W, Rogers, C & Sextos, A 2025, 'Effect of cyclic thermal loading on the behaviour of integral abutment bridges: a large-scale experimental study in a soil pit', Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 62, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2024-0543

Afrasiabi, A, Faramarzi, A, Chapman, D & Keshavarzi, A 2025, 'Optimising Ground Penetrating Radar data interpretation: A hybrid approach with AI-assisted Kalman Filter and Wavelet Transform for detecting and locating buried utilities', Journal of Applied Geophysics, vol. 232, 105567. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2024.105567

Chen, K, Eskandari Torbaghan, M, Thom, N, Garcia-Hernández, A, Faramarzi, A & Chapman, D 2024, 'A Machine Learning based approach to predict road rutting considering uncertainty', Case Studies in Construction Materials, vol. 20, e03186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cscm.2024.e03186

Movahedifar, R, Royal, A, Eskandari Torbaghan, M, Metje, N & Chapman, D 2024, 'Numerically simulating the interconnected nature of the road-soil-pipe infrastructure', Results in Engineering, vol. 23, 102537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2024.102537

Cassidy, NJ, O’Regan, P, Luo, S, Chapman, DN, Jefferson, I, Zhu, X (ed.), Lu, H (ed.), Xu, Z-D (ed.) & Guo, Y-Q (ed.) 2024, 'The Application of High-Resolution, Embedded Fibre Optic (FO) Sensing for Large-Diameter Composite Steel/Plastic Pipeline Performance under Dynamic Transport Loads', Sensors, vol. 24, no. 4, 1298. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24041298

Farai, O, Metje, N, Anthony, C & Chapman, D 2023, 'Analysis of Acoustic Signal Propagation for Reliable Digital Communication along Exposed and Buried Water Pipes', Applied Sciences, vol. 13, no. 7, 4611. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13074611

Boddice, D, Metje, N & Chapman, D 2023, 'Long‐term monitoring to inform the geophysical detection of archaeological ditch anomalies in different climatic conditions', Archaeological Prospection. https://doi.org/10.1002/arp.1902

Monzer, A, Faramarzi, A, Yerro, A & Chapman, D 2023, 'MPM Investigation of the Fluidization Initiation and Post-Fluidization Mechanism Around a Pressurized Leaking Pipe', Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering - ASCE, vol. 149, no. 11, 04023096. https://doi.org/10.1061/JGGEFK.GTENG-10985

Farai, O, Metje, N, Anthony, C & Chapman, D 2023, 'Novel communication system for buried water pipe monitoring using acoustic signal propagation along the pipe', International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications,. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPCC-05-2022-0179

Zhao, G, Lin, K, Chapman, D, Metje, N & Hao, T 2023, 'Optimizing Energy Efficiency of LoRaWAN-based Wireless Underground Sensor Networks: A Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approach', Internet of Things, vol. 22, 100776. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iot.2023.100776

Luo, S, Huang, Z, Asia, Y, De luca, F, De risi, R, Harkness, J, Le pen, L, Watson, G, Milne, D, Chapman, D, Sextos, A, Metje, N, Mylonakis, G, Cassidy, N, Jefferson, I, Smethurst, J, Richards, D, Taylor, C, Powrie, W & Rogers, C 2023, 'Physical and numerical investigation of integral bridge abutment stiffness due to seasonal thermal loading', Transportation Geotechnics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trgeo.2023.101064

Conference contribution

Luo, S, Metje, N, Chapman, D, Rogers, C, De Risi, R, Huang, Z, De luca, F, Milne, D, Powrie, W, Mylonakis, G & Sextos, A 2026, Multi-Scale Experimental Investigation of Soil-Abutment Interaction in Integral Bridges Under Cyclic Thermal Loading. in Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, 21st International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Vienna, Austria, 14/06/26.

Metje, N, Jefferson, I, Hansard, K, Chapman, D & Faramarzi, A 2024, National Buried Infrastructure Facility (NBIF)-New Opportunities for Controlled Testing. in W Wu, CF Leung, Y Zhou & X Li (eds), Proceedings of the 18th Conference of the Associated Research Centers for the Urban Underground Space: ACUUS 2023; 1–4 November; Singapore. 1 edn, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, vol. 471, Springer, pp. 1221-1223, 18th Conference of the Associated Research Centers for the Urban Underground Space, ACUUS 2023, Boulevard, Singapore, 1/11/23. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1257-1_166

Review article

Zhai, W, Zhang, D, Huang, H & Chapman, D 2023, 'Numerical investigation into the composite behaviour of over-deformed segmental tunnel linings strengthened by bonding steel plates', Soils and Foundations, vol. 63, no. 4, 101335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2023.101335

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