Research

• Low-carbon construction materials

• Volarising wastes into concrete matrices

• Concrete durability and early-age cracking

• Self-sensing and self-healing materials

• Additive manufacturing with concrete

• Rheology of cementitious composites

• Steady-state analysis of construction fluids

• Structuration and modelling

• Shear and viscoelastic response

• Characterisation techniques

• Smart control of composites' fresh and plastic state

Research is the bedrock of development and our philosophy is research excellence for ground-breaking innovations and global impact.  The first two themes emanate from my bachelor’s and master’s degree research, the third and fourth themes from my doctorate research and the last two theme from being a research fellow. I currently conduct research in all these themes, with over 40 publications in top journals, by pushing the boundaries of science, technology, engineering and mathematics to understand the advanced behaviour of innovative materials for infrastructural applications.

With increasing global warming, carbon-intensive industries have been undergoing decarbonisation, which motivated my BSc research (link BLA) to investigate a locally available supplement for Portland cement – the emitter of the world’s 9% CO2. In my MSc research, I upscaled the investigation to examine bamboo leaf ash and ground clay brick waste (link BLA/PBCW). I continued in this research trajectory by leading and collaborating on studies in low-carbon construction materials such as sugarcane bagasse ash, metakaolin & limestone calcined clay (link MTK, link LC3), coir fibre reinforcement, compressed stabilised earth bricks, recycled & waste aggregate (link slag, link chapter), just to name a few.

While I investigated the durability of the sustainable binder in my MSc research, early-age cracking driven by the local environmental conditions of dry/low humidity, wind, and scorching heat became a prominent problem. To understand the underlying mechanism, an aspect became unexplainable – the inherent rheological interaction. This led to dedicating my PhD research to elucidating this interaction, leading to a successful PhD fellowship funded by the prestigious The World Academy of Sciences, 6 journal publications, 1 conference paper, and 4 prominent awards. I collaboratively worked with the Department of Process Engineering to acquire the outstanding niche expertise in rheology, thereby developing a novel measurement method, analytical model and materials optimisation. These expanded my expertise in materials and established me as a rheology specialist.

In recent times, technologically advanced applications such as 3D concrete printing (3DCP), smart concrete, and self-compacting ultra-high-performance concrete have driven significant international attention on rheology, materials optimisation, and early-age evolution. I was, therefore, uniquely positioned with the right expertise to advance these cutting-edge research, leading to my postdoctoral research. During my postdoc, I multi-disciplinarily work with world leaders in intelligent automation, microstructure engineering, cement materials science, and fracture mechanics in a world pioneering and leading 3DCP consortium at Loughborough University to advance knowledge and solve complex problems. 

Currently, I lead and collaborate in these themes culminating from my research journey and  links for collaborative initiatives as part of my research vision and plans.

In progress .....