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Nemkumar Banthia
Or Nemy, is a professor of Civil Engineering and a Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He is also the CEO and the Scientific Director of IC-IMPACTS, the first, and only Research Centre of Excellence established between Canada and India through the Canadian Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE).

Dr. Banthia’s main research interests include cement-based and polymer-based fiber reinforced composites, with particular emphasis on testing and standardization, fracture behavior, constitutive modeling, strain-rate effects, and repair performance, areas in which he has edited/co-edited ten volumes, published over 250 technical papers, and holds three international patents.

In 2012, he assumed the position of the Chief Executive Officer at IC-IMPACTS (The India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability). Banthia was named the Scientific Director of IC-IMPACTS in the same year, and is also the Theme Lead for Safe and Sustainable Infrastructure at the research centre.

In 2003, Dr. Banthia was inducted as a Distinguished University Scholar at University of British Columbia and was appointed as a Senior Canada Research Chair in Infrastructure Rehabilitation and Sustainability in 2006.

Education

Dr. Banthia graduated from University of British Columbia in 1987 with a Doctoral in Civil Engineering Materials. He had received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in India, at Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology in 1980 and Indian Institute of Technology of New Delhi in 1982, respectively.

Career

Since Dr. Banthia obtained his Ph.D. from University of British Columbia on Impact Resistance of Concrete, he has developed a keen interest in cement-based and polymer-based fiber reinforced composites, with particular emphasis on testing and standardization, fracture behavior, strain-rate effects, durability and development of sustainable materials. He pioneered the process of structural repair and strengthening using sprayed fiber reinforced polymers. He is credited for his contributions to the fundamental understanding of sprayed concrete including particle and fiber kinematics, rebound modeling, in-situ quality control and performance characterization. In the area of fiber reinforced cementitious composites, he has developed a number of novel fibers for concrete and shotcrete reinforcement, and these fibers are now being used in numerous large projects around the world.

Since then, Dr. Banthia has edited/co-edited fifteen volumes, published over 250 technical papers, and holds three international patents.

A professional engineer in the province of British Columbia, Dr. Banthia serves on the technical committees of various professional societies. They include the American Concrete Institute where he chairs the committee on fiber reinforced concrete, RILEM where he chairs the Technical Committee on FRP-Concrete Bond, and the Canadian Standards Association where he chairs the Durability Committee of the Highway Bridge Design Code. In addition, he also serves on the Editorial Boards of four international journals.

In an interview with the Vancouver Sun on June 27, 2014, Dr. Banthia remarks that the use of smart concrete would help reduce the estimated $125 billion currently needed to maintain Canada’s infrastructure of bridges, roads, and parking lots.

“These are highly innovative things that are slowly getting into our structures,” said Dr. Banthia.

The smart concrete that Dr. Banthia is designing has sensors built right in. They are based on nano-technology and would be monitored by a computer, which would sound an alarm if traffic on the bridge exceeds the allowable load limit, or if the structure is close to a collapse. The sensors can also be used to turn on heater that can de-ice bridges.

“What they do is sense the chemical environment,” said Dr. Banthia. “They sense cracking and they can sense changes in the physical characteristics of the material, such as deterioration and loss of strength. Then you would have enough time to create a repair solution.”

To learn more about Dr. Banthia, please visit his page on the Faculty of Applied Sciences, Department of Civil Engineering website.

IC-IMPACTS

IC-IMPACTS (the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability) is the first, and only, Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence established through the Canadian Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE).

It is a new Centre dedicated to the development of research collaborations between Canada and India. Built upon the vision of three of Canada’s leading research universities, University of British Columbia, University of Alberta, and University of Toronto, IC-IMPACTS is a pan-Canadian Centre bringing together researchers, industry innovators, community leaders, government agencies, and community organizations from across India and Canada, to work hand-in-hand to find solutions to the key challenges that affect the quality of life of millions of people in Indian and Canadian communities.

To learn more about IC-IMPACTS, please visit their website.

Personal Life

Dr. Banthia was born and brought up in India, last of the four sons of Panmal and Vimal Banthia who were both Rajputs from Rajasthan. His parents had meager beginnings themselves, but instilled in their children the value of hard work, honesty, and compassion. He is further blessed with a wonderful family of his own: a very supportive wife, Kavita, and two beautiful children, Vinita and Varun.

Awards

Dr. Banthia was the recipient of the 2013 Aftab Mufti Medal of the International Society for Structural Health Monitoring of Intelligent Infrastructure (ISHMII). The award was conferred at the annual conference of ISHMII held in Hong Kong. The award recognizes Dr. Banthia’s work in detecting corrosion in reinforced concrete bridges using active infrared thermography.

Dr. Banthia has received various honors and awards worldwide including the WG Hislop Award of the ACI-BC Chapter, four Best Paper Awards, and the Wason Medal from the American Concrete Institute. More recently he was honored by the British Columbia Innovation Council by its coveted Solutions Through Research Award and jointly by the Seoul National University and the [Korea Concrete Institute Korea Concrete Institute] by their Distinguished Researcher Award. Dr. Banthia is a fellow of the American Concrete Institute, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, the Indian Concrete Institute and the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

For a compete list of awards received by Dr. Banthia, please visit this page.

References

Nemkumar Banthia