Dr Wonjun Cha

Dr. Wonjun Cha

Department of Civil Engineering
Assistant Professor

Contact details

Email
w.cha@bham.ac.uk
Address
School of Engineering
Department of Civil Engineering
University 麻豆精选
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Wonjun is an Assistant Professor in Geotechnical Engineering at the Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, University 麻豆精选, UK. His research interests include:

  1. Long term soil behaviour modelling  
  2. Infrastructure Monitoring (DFOS, NMR, and EM).
  3. Renewable Energy
  4. Geophysical monitoring tool development
  5. Soil characterization tool development

Please contact with Wonjun if you are interested in any of these research areas for a PhD, postdoctoral or research collaboration programme.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Energy Resource and Petroleum Engineering 2021
  • MSc in Geotechnical Engineering, Kookmin University, 2016
  • BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Kookmin University, 2013

Biography

Wonjun Cha is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering in the School of Engineering at the University 麻豆精选. He received his M.Eng degree (Hons.) in geotechnical engineering from Kookmin University, South Korea, in 2016 and a PhD in Energy Resource and Petroleum Engineering from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in 2021.

He served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Smart Infrastructure in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2022 to 2023. He joined the University 麻豆精选 in September 2023. He has extensive experience in geophysics, laboratory tool development, and both onshore and offshore fieldwork. He has significantly contributed to international collaborations on foam cement development and bio-inspired geotechnical damping material development.

His research interests include the long-term response of soil subjected to varied mechanical and environmental stresses (heating-cooling and freezing-thawing), as well as long-term buried infrastructure monitoring with robotics and wireless sensing networks.

Teaching

  • BEng/MEng Civil Engineering
  • MSc Geotechnical Engineering

Postgraduate supervision

Wonjun is currently supervising 4 post graduate students in Geotechnical Engineering and Advanced Engineering Management programmes.

Wonjun is accepting PhD students and welcoming postdoctoral researchers and academic visitors. Applicants could be interested in projects related to geophysical monitoring and sensing (Distributed Fiber Optic sensing DFOS, wireless sensing node WSN, Nuclear magnetic resonance NMR, and electromagnetic EM measurement) for geo-infrastructure, Long-term soil behaviour modelling (repetitive loading – cyclic shear loading, heating and cooling, freezing and thawing, wetting and drying and Salt intrusion) Renewable energy (shallow geothermal).

Research

Wonjun is currently working on:

  • Long-term soil response to climate change
  • Geomembrane response to heating and cooling cycles
  • Data-driven prediction model for buried pipeline
  • Robust soil characterization tool development
  • Stress analysis for ground anchor using Fiber optics

Publications

Book chapter

Santamarina, J. C., Park, J., Terzariol, M., Cardona, A., Castro, G. M., Cha, W., Garcia, A., Hakiki, F., Lyu, C, Salva, M., Shen, Y., Sun, Z., and Chong, S. H. (2019). "Soil Properties: Physics-Inspired, Data-Driven.", in Geotechnical Fundamentals for Addressing New World Challenges, Editors: Ning Lu and James Mitchell, Springer, pp. 67- 91

Articles

Cha, W., Kang S., and Kim H. (2024). “Particle-size characterization of silty-to-sandy powders: Laser-transmission technique.” Geotechnical Testing journal

Cha, W., Park, J., and Santamarina, J. C. (2022). "Long-term response of sand subjected to cyclic simple shear: Shakedown, Ratcheting, and Terminal void ratio." Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE

Han, W., Park, J., Cha, W., Lee, J. S., and Santamarina, J. C. (2022). "Pore topology, volume expansion and pressure development in chemically-induced foam cement." Nature Scientific reports, Vol.12(1), pp. 1-10

Noh, D., Cha, W., Santamarina, J. C. and Cho, G., Kwon, T. (2021). "The effect of soft viscoelastic biopolymer on the undrained shear behavior of loose sands." Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE, Vol.147, Issue 8.