Unlucky escapes: Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) to mitigate contact erosion in sands.

My path to Engineering began when I first saw the 285-meter high Grande Dixence Dam during a family trip to Switzerland when I was 10 years old. I am originally from Spain, a country characterised by a highly varying hydrological regime and where dam construction is always on the agenda. This encouraged me to undertake my Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Barcelona), spending the final year in Switzerland, the country that originally sparked my curiosity. This gave me the valuable opportunity to do my thesis at EPFL on the conception of a hydropower scheme in Cameroon under the supervision of Prof Schleiss and Prof Manso. Always having in mind the idea of becoming a world expert on the design of hydraulic structures and schemes, I decided to do a PhD. I was awarded the EPSRC International Doctoral Scholar Grant to do a 4-year combined Master in Research (MRes) + PhD programme in Civil Engineering as part of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment (FIBE CDT) at the University of Cambridge. As part of my master’s thesis, entitled “Ageing and sustainable management of earth embankment dams”, I completed a large literature review to understand the different deterioration scenarios of earth dams in the UK. This led to my current PhD topic, entitled “Improving the resilience of sands to contact erosion by microbial induced calcite precipitation (MICP)”, which crosses the threshold between Biology, Chemistry and Geotechnical Engineering to bring cost-effective and low-impact solutions to improve the resilience of embankment dams and levees to contact erosion.
A. C. Saracho