Gabriel Barros dos Santos

Dr Gabriel dos Santos is the BRE Trust Senior Lecturer in Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Hertfordshire. His research interests lie on testing, numerical modelling and design of steel and composite structures.

More recently, he proposed new recommendations for the design of stainless steel members under concentrated transverse loading. Such recommendations were validated against extensive structural member tests, comprehensive parametric finite element analyses and reliability assessments. This resulted in a 10% to 20% improvement in accuracy in comparison to current design guidance in Eurocode 3. The new design recommendations will be adopted in the next revision of the European Standards, which reach an audience of more than 500 million people worldwide. In previous research projects, he analysed the behaviour of innovative connection typologies between steel hollow sections using minimal welding.

He also acquired industry experience as a structural engineer in the design of offshore structures such as modules of FPSO’s (Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessels), particularly the analysis and design of such modules during transport, load-out, lifting and fatigue loading scenarios.

Dr dos Santos is currently the module leader for structural engineering subjects of the BEng/MEng in Civil Engineering at the University of Hertfordshire. Prior to this post, he was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Imperial College for four years, where he was awarded “Highly Commended Graduate Teaching Assistant 2017-2018”.

His research interests lie in the investigation of structural behaviour of steel and composite structures and its components through experiments, numerical modelling and probabilistic assessments aiming for more efficient and sustainable structural design guidance.

He is the module leader of the following courses:

- Systems, Data and Technologies for Civil Engineering (7ENT1079)

- Structural Design for Fire Safety (7ENT1075) in partnership with BRE Group

- Advanced Structural Analysis and Design (6ENT1074)

- Civil Engineering Structural Design (5ENT1096)

He was also a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) for the following modules of the BEng/MEng in Civil Engineering at Imperial College London:

- Computational Methods I & II (CI1-121 and CI2-221)

- Constructionarium (CI2-212)

- Creative Design I & II (CI1-111 and CI2-211)

- Steel Structures and Design (CI4-432)

- Structural Design (CI2-213)

- Structural Mechanics (CI2-231)

He is an active reviewer for academic journals, such as 'International Journal of Steel Structures' (ISSN 1598-2351 ISSN 2093-6311, Springer), 'Structures' (ISSN 2352-0124, Elsevier), Thin-Walled Structures (ISSN: 0263-8231, Elsevier) and Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417, MDPI).

A graduate member of The Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE), where he acts as a corresponding member of the Structural Futures Committee and Student Liaison Officer for the University. He is also member of the Offshore Engineering Society (OES).

He is interested in collaborating with industry and society in general through specialized advisory works and/or contributing to the design and product development of innovative and sustainable structural engineering solutions.