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3D printing of cementitious materials for complex shapes

The 24-month collaborative project, funded under the Newton Fund Institutional Links route with Turkey, will bring together research teams from the UK and Turkey to extend new knowledge, specifically in the field of additive manufacturing and rheological optimisation of raw materials that are tailored for 3D printing. The combination of materials science and innovative technologies, such as 3D printing, will enable new areas for product development.

The project ambition is to co-develop an understanding of material science to manufacture complex microarchitectures that will be produced using Material Extrusion as an Additive Manufacturing process. Calcium phosphate cement will be utilised and its physical properties will be engineered. The manufacturing process and raw material properties will be optimised to enhance the flow behaviour and efficiency of extrusion. The goal is to ensure that cementitious material can be produced suitably for tissue scaffolds with high dimensional resolution as low as 100 micrometres.

Photo 1. Dr Eujin Pei (left) and Dr Seyed Ghaffar (right)
Photo 1. Dr Eujin Pei (left) and Dr Seyed Ghaffar (right)

Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Dr Seyed Ghaffar - Dr Seyed Ghaffar is an Associate Professor in Civil Engineering. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer and a Fellow member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (CEng, FICE), 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 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.

Related Research Group(s)

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UKRI Research England

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Project last modified 21/06/2021