Dr. Rui ZHANG is a faculty member of the Department of Bridge Engineering, School of Civil Engineering at the Southwest Jiaotong University since October 2015. He completed his undergraduate course in Southwest Jiaotong University, Emei Campus in Jun. 2009. Then he was enrolled into Earthquake Engineering of International Graduated Program (A) at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Oct. 2009. Under the supervision of Prof. Kazuhiko Kawashima, he obtained his master degree in Sep. 2011. During his mater course, his research topic was about application of ultra-high strength steel fiber reinfoced concrete (UFC, like Ductal®), which has a ultra-high compressive strength more than 200 MPa, in the plastic hinge region of the bridge columns to enhance seismic performance. He obtained his doctorate degree from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan in Mar. 2015 uner the supervision of Prof. Junichiro Niwa. During his doctoral course, he focused on the application of polypropylene fiber reinforced engineered cementitious composites (PP-ECC), which is a new cementitious composite with superior tensile ductility more than 3%, in the beam and beam-column joint connections for enhancing structural performance.

Dr. Zhang interests in the area of structural concrete and earthqauke engineering, especially application of High Performance Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Composites (HPFRCC), such as, Ultra-high Strength Steel-Fiber Reinforced Concrete (UFC) and Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) in bridges for improving seismic performance.