Academic Profile - Professor Ashraf Ashour
Exploring sustainable construction materials and techniques
Ashraf Ashour, Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Bradford talks to us about his distinguished career at the University of Bradford spanning more than 30 years. His research interests include the development of 'green concrete' which has the potential to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of the construction industry, and a demountable pillars system to reduce the need for demolition.
Can you tell us about your background, and how you came to Bradford?
I'm originally from Egypt and did an MSc in Structural Engineering at Mansoura University. I was encouraged and inspired by the staff there, and I published two papers, which at that time was very unusual for a master's student. This was the main reason I was offered a scholarship at Cambridge University, and so I spent the three years at Trinty College Cambridge from 1991 doing my PhD; my thesis was on the ‘Behaviour and Strength of Reinforced Concrete Continuous Deep Beams’.
In 1994 I moved to the University of Bradford as a lecturer, and I’ve developed my career here, becoming Professor of Structural Engineering in 2015. It was a very good decision for me - we have unique facilities here and a talented team, and a thriving Islamic culture in the region which is important to me - that's why I’ve stayed here for more than 30 years.
Professor Ashraf Ashour
How have your research interests developed at Bradford?
The advanced skills I developed at Cambridge, including the verification, validation, robustness, the rigour and so forth have been instrumental in my career in structural engineering research, and I have consistently published papers and done lots of scholarly activities as well as supervising PhD students. However, a challenge I was increasingly facing was that structural engineering is a very traditional area of research, with a well-established code of practice without much space for innovation.
So I decided to change my focus towards the recycling and reuse of construction materials, particularly concrete, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the University’s own strategic goals for sustainability. Concrete is an extremely useful and versatile material that’s used all across the world, but around 7% of global CO2 emissions come from cement and concrete production. I worked with colleagues from Turkey to look at how we could recycle construction and demolition waste to make a cement replacement.
We found that a specific combination of ground demolition waste and chemicals including sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate could produce a binding material which has the potential to replace concrete. This project was awarded the Newton Prize in 2020, a £1 million fund shared across projects that demonstrate a tangible impact on global challenges.
We also worked with academics in Turkey on demountable connections - concrete structures that can be dismantled and rebuilt in another location. Usually concrete buildings are demolished straight away creating tons of waste material because they are connected in a very rigid way which is otherwise impossible to disassemble. We produced a system that could be reused and has many potential uses, for example an Olympic Village which is only needed for a short period, that could be moved to the next host of the games.
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The process of turning waste bricks into a cement alternative
Can you pick out some of your other career highlights?
I’ve been honoured to have been recognised professionally in a number of ways: I'm Fellow of the Institute of Structural Engineers and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy; I’ve published more than 300 papers in highly regarded journals and conferences, and as a result have been ranked among the top 2% of scientists in civil engineering every year from 2019 -2024 on a global database produced by Stanford University.
I've also been editor of many journals, including serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Structures and Buildings Journal (ICE), and last year I was invited to chair the Civil and Geological Engineering Panel for Portugal’s R&D Unit evaluations in civil engineering, heading a team of international academics.
I have been featured in two videos on the subject of ‘green concrete’ from the BBC and Channel 4. I also recently published a book with Elsevier, Sustainable Concrete Materials and Structures which draws on my recent experience.
What’s coming up for you?
We have just received £720,000 from the British Council, mainly to host 12 research fellows from Brazil, Egypt, Vietnam and Malaysia for one year. These early career researchers will be benefiting from the expertise of our staff and university facilities across the Faculty of Engineering. We also received very good news from Horizon Europe, who've awarded two Marie Curie fellowships at the University. They will be working with us over two years on developing concrete with magnetic permeability to improve the infrastructure for battery charging of electric vehicles. The other Marie Curie fellowship is about CO2 emissions. We're looking at capturing, utilising and storing CO2 into cement or construction & demolition waste when we grind it to powder form, which hopefully will contribute to achieving net zero.