Research Interests

• Offshore geotechnical engineering  

• Reliability analysis of geotechnical engineering  

• Fluid-structure-seabed interaction

Education and Work Experience

• 2014.09 – 2015.09  Visiting PhD Student, Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems, The University of Western Australia

• 2011.09 – 2016.06  PhD, Hydraulic Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University

• 2007.09 – 2011.07  BE, Port, Channel and Coast Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University

• 2023.11 – now  Professor, South China University of Technology

• 2022.06 – 2023.10  Associate Professor, South China University of Technology

• 2019.01 – 2022.05  Research Fellow, National University of Singapore

• 2016.07 – 2018.12  Engineer / Senior Engineer, Tianjin Port Engineering Institute Co., Ltd.

Research Achievement

Professor SHEN Zhichao, a recipient of National Excellent Young Scientists Fund Program, is mainly engaged in teaching and research in the field of soil mechanics and offshore geotechnical engineering (including the interaction between soil and marine structures, such as shallow foundations, pile foundations, anchors, and pipelines; settlement of soft ground; and the application of artificial intelligence methods in offshore geotechnical engineering, etc.). He has been the PI of 11 research projects and has been awarded the Minister’s Innovation Award 2021 (Distinguished Award) of the Ministry of Transport, Singapore. He has published more than 30 papers in the field of soil mechanics and offshore geotechnical engineering.

• National Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scientists Fund Program, Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, 2024.01 to 2026.12, PI  

• Design Optimization of Shared Mooring Anchoring System for Offshore Floating Wind Power, Supported by Guangdong Province Natural Science Foundation, 2023.11 to 2026.10, PI  

• Failure Mechanisms and Bearing Capacities of Multiline Bucket-type Anchors under Omnidirectional Dynamic Loading, Supported by Guangdong Province Natural Science Foundation, 2025.01 to 2027.12, PI  

• Numerical Simulation for the Installation of Ultra-large Steel Cylinders, Supported by CNOOC (China) Limited Ocean Engineering Company, 2023.10 to 2024.02, PI.  

• Research on the Mechanism of Soil-Pipe Interaction at the Touchdown Zone of Deepwater Risers and Fatigue Assessment Method, Supported by CNOOC (China) Limited Beijing Research Institute, 2024.09 to 2025.12, PI

• Shen Z, Pan Q, Chian S C, Gourvenec S, Tian Y. Probabilistic failure envelopes of strip foundations on soils with non-stationary characteristics of undrained shear strength, Géotechnique, 2023, 73(8): 716-735.

• Shen Z, Tian Y, Chian S C, Yan Z. Improving the estimation of soil spatial variability by considering transformation uncertainty based on LDRFE analysis. Computers and Geotechnics, 2023, 156: 105299.

• Shen Z, Jin D, Pan Q, Yang H, Chian S C. Effect of soil spatial variability on failure mechanisms and undrained capacities of strip foundations under uniaxial loading. Computers and Geotechnics, 2021, 139: 104387.

• Shen Z, Feng X, Gourvenec S. Effect of interface condition on the undrained capacity of subsea mudmats under six-degree-of-freedom loading. Géotechnique, 2017, 67(4): 338-349.

• Shen Z, Bie S, Guo L. Undrained capacity of a surface circular foundation under fully three-dimensional loading. Computers and Geotechnics, 2017, 92: 57-67.