Mr. Chandrashekhar Lakavath is a Ph.D. scholar at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IIT-Hyderabad), Telangana. He holds M.Tech. in Structural Engineering from Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, in 2018 and a B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from JNTUH College of Engineering-Manthani, Telangana, in 2015. He worked as a graduate engineer trainee at Patil Rail Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd and has research experience of one year at IIT Hyderabad under the guidance of Prof. S. Suriya Prakash.
He is interested in developing Ultra high-performance concrete (UHPC), Lightweight concrete, and guidelines for shear design. Currently, he is working on understanding the shear behavior of post-tensioned ultra-high-performance fiber reinforced concrete beams. He also developed a UHPC concrete using locally available materials in India, which is most needed in the construction industry. He has published seven reputed peer-reviewed international journals and four international conference proceedings.
Mr. Lakavath received the best research work awards for two consecutive years at Civil Conclave 2020 and 2021, organized by IIT Roorkee. He received the prestigious Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) and National Fellowship and Scholarship for Higher Education of ST Students (NFST) for his doctoral research. Mr. Lakavath has collaborations with Lyles School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, IOWA State University, Cleveland State University and the University of Birmingham.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Fellow, Lakavath will be developing a shear capacity prediction model for post-tensioned ultra-high performance concrete beams. It will fulfil the need for both design and research engineers to estimate the shear capacity of bridge girders.