Welcome

Sustainable Infrastructure research group at the University of Salford is an open research teaming platform aiming to promote international research collaboration on the topics of sustainable development in civil engineering sector. Initiated in 2014 and driven by all participating colleagues, the team so far has graduated 5 PhDs and produced number of influential research outputs and publications. The research outputs not only contributed to the REF 2022 but also fed in both Undergraduate and MSc teaching. Recently, a UG graduate (www.linkedin.com/in/harrison-thoma-ht1999/) and MEng graduate (www.linkedin.com/in/adam-potts-35ba76172/), done their final year projects on the topics in line with the SI team, have achieved 1st class honors degree and been awarded two prestigious prizes in the Civil Engineering at Salford. The team is seeing increasing interests from application for postgraduate research study, and research collaboration from both academia and industry worldwide.

Researches

The team now has six clear main areas/directions with well-established foundation.

  • Reinforced Concrete Structural Durability

A previous PhD graduate of the team has received a postdoctoral fellowship for two years (2022-2024) and will come back to continue her work in PhD project.

  • Oil/Gas Soil Contamination Assessment and Remediation

Contracted to the Kuwait Oil Company, the industrial collaborative project supports the remediation of the oil contaminated soil, a largescale project funded by United Nations. It requires long time efforts to go with sustaining research. The research output will have far reaching implication for wider environmental issues.

  • High Performance Asphalt Concrete and Sustainable Pavement

This is a long-standing collaboration between the University of Salford and the University of Baghdad Iraq since 2014. On the partnership, we have produced several influential publications (Q1 journals), and generated sustaining activities with one ongoing PhD project at Salford, and two ongoing MSc projects at the University of Baghdad. The current research is particularly focused on the effect of climate change and the sustainability of pavement infrastructure, and the asphalt concrete modification.

  • Slope Hydrology and Soil Erosion

A researcher funded by China Scholarship Council will come to join in our team for two years (2022-24).

Together with a partner at the Taiyuan University of Technology in China, we submitted a standard fund proposal to the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The research is a topical issue for the influence of climate change and environmental sustainability.

  • Sustainable Construction Materials using Recycled Wastes

In collaboration with the Imperial College London and the NingboTech University in China, the research aims to contribute to the low carbon and circular economy and technology.

  • Water Resources

Dr. Wayne Y. Wang is PI at Salford for the EU project – WaterAgri (https://wateragri.eu/). The Salford team is on a research assessing a water retention product and the modelling characterization of its effect on soil hydraulic properties.

Activities

Team members

Dr. Yu Wayne Wang
University of Salford
Prof ِ Amjad Albayati
University of Baghdad
Prof. Igor Shabalin
University of Salford
Prof. Xing-Tao Fu
Taiyuan University of Technology
Dr. Ahmed Al-Tameemi
Al-Nahrain University
Mr. Azedin Al Ashaibi
PhD student at University of Salford

Students’ success

BSc student, Harrison Thoma, did his final year project on ‘The Investigation, Design, and Testing of a Modular Lightweight Structure for Low-cost Homeless Shelters
MEng student, Adam Pott, did his final year project on ‘Fatigue Analysis of Flexible Pavement Structures under Coupled Effect of Thermal-Mechanical Loading