Skip to Content
Exit Menu
e

Dr Seyed Ghaffar
Senior Lecturer – Senior Tutor & Admissions Tutor Department of CEE

Howell Building 204

Summary

Dr Seyed Ghaffar is an Associate Professor in Civil Engineering. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer (CEng, MICE), a Member of the Institute of Concrete Technology (MICT) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

He is the leader of Additive Manufacturing Technology in Construction Research Group (AMTC). The focus of AMTC is on valorising construction and demolition waste using materials science and 3D printing to achieve the circular economy goals of sustainable construction. Dr Ghaffar, as the Principal Investigator, has been successful in securing a €220K project funded by the H2020 EU Commission on ''Digital fabrication and integration of Material reuse for environmentally friendly cementitious composite building blocks (DigiMat)' 2021-2023.

Dr Ghaffar is the Principal Investigator of a £300K project funded by the British Council (Institutional Links) on 'Direct Writing of Cementitious Inks to Scaffolds with Complex Microarchitectures (DiWoCIS)' 2020-2022. He is also the Principal Investigator of a £300K project funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on 'High-Performance Compressed Straw Board (HP-CSB): A New Generation of Building Materials' 2018-2022.

Dr Ghaffar's research covers a number of construction materials, with a focus on the development of low-carbon technologies suitable for new and retrofitting applications by combining materials sciences and innovative technologies.

Dr Ghaffar is the Executive Editor of the Journal of Results in Engineering (Elsevier)  

He recently edited a book titled "Innovation in construction - A Practical Guide to Transforming the Construction Industry".

He is a Member of the EPSRC Peer Review College and has been appointed as an expert evaluator for the Dutch Research Council (NWO), the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF), and the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). Dr Ghaffar has also acted as an expert evaluator on Horizon Europe HORIZON-CL4-2021-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-12: Breakthrough technologies supporting technological sovereignty in construction (RIA) (November 2021) and HORIZON-CL4-2022-RESILIENCE-01-16: Building and renovating by exploiting advanced materials for energy and resources efficient management (IA) (April 2022). 

During his PhD (2012-2016), Dr Ghaffar was simultaneously working as a research associate on several European research projects, i.e. Grow2Build, VIP4ALL, REWOBIOREF and GELCLAD.

Natural fibre composite production, formulation and characterisation are part of Dr Ghaffar's research expertise. In 2015, he was appointed Manager of Grow2Build European Centre of Excellence (Grow2Build), which serves as a permanent focal point for local manufacturers, industries and research centres interested in bio-based building products, providing technical support and innovation for the utilisation of bio-based products in the construction industry.

Moreover, construction waste management and valorisation (WasteValue) is another of Dr Ghaffar's research interests. This research aims to study the feasibility of the circular economy (cradle to cradle) management of waste and the environmental sustainability of the systems in construction. WasteValue evaluates and analyses current technologies and strategies concerning construction and demolition waste management in the UK.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Civil Engineering - Material Science, Brunel University (2016)
  • BEng in Civil Engineering (1st Class Hons.), Brunel University (2012)

Responsibility

  1. Senior Tutor for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2020 - Present)
  2. Member of the Department Management board (2020- Present) 
  3. Departmental Year 1 Coordinator (2019 - Present)
  4. Admissions Tutor for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2018-2022)  
  5. Placement Coordinator / Employability Champion (2017- 2021)
  6. Civil Engineering Laboratory Coordinator (2017-2021)

Newest selected publications

Cuevas, K., Strzałkowski, J., Kim, JS., Ehm, C., Glotz, T., Chougan, M., et al. (2023) 'Towards development of sustainable lightweight 3D printed wall building envelopes – Experimental and numerical studies'. Case Studies in Construction Materials, 18. pp. e01945 - e01945. ISSN: 2214-5095

Journal article

Al-Raqeb, H., Ghaffar, SH., Al-Kheetan, MJ. and Chougan, M. (2023) 'Understanding the challenges of construction demolition waste management towards circular construction: Kuwait Stakeholder’s perspective'. Cleaner Waste Systems, 4. pp. 100075 - 100075. ISSN: 2772-9125

Journal article

Lamastra, FR., Montesperelli, G., Galvanetto, E., Chougan, M., Ghaffar, SH., Al-Kheetan, MJ. and et al. (2023) 'An Insight into Durability, Electrical Properties and Thermal Behavior of Cementitious Materials Engineered with Graphene Oxide: Does the Oxidation Degree Matter?'. Nanomaterials, 13 (4). pp. 726 - 726. ISSN: 2079-4991

Journal article

El-Seidy, E., Chougan, M., Sambucci, M., Al-Kheetan, MJ., Biblioteca, I., Valente, M. and et al. (2023) 'Lightweight alkali-activated materials and ordinary Portland cement composites using recycled polyvinyl chloride and waste glass aggregates to fully replace natural sand'. Construction and Building Materials, 368. pp. 1 - 13. ISSN: 0950-0618 Open Access Link

Journal article

Chougan, M., Lamastra, FR., Caschera, D., Kaciulis, S., Bolli, E., Mazzuca, C., et al. (2023) 'Cementitious nanocomposites engineered with high-oxidized graphene oxide: Spotting the nano to macro correlation'. Ceramics International, 49 (1). pp. 964 - 973. ISSN: 0272-8842

Journal article
More publications(69)