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.