̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Abir Al-Tabbaa

Major investment in doctoral training announced

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 14:23:55 +0000

̽��ֱ��65 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) will support leading research in areas of national importance, including net zero, AI, defence and security, healthcare and quantum technologies. ̽��ֱ��£1 billion in funding – from government, universities and industry – represents the UK’s biggest-ever investment in engineering and physical sciences doctoral skills.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge will lead two of the CDTs and is a partner in a further five CDTs. ̽��ֱ��funding will support roughly 150 Cambridge PhD students over the next five years.

̽��ֱ��CDT in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment: Unlocking Net Zero (FIBE3 CDT), led by Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa from the Department of Engineering, will focus on meeting the needs of the infrastructure and construction sector in its pursuit of net zero by 2050 and is a collaboration between Cambridge, 30+ industry partners and eight international academic partners.

“ ̽��ֱ��infrastructure sector is responsible for significant CO2 emissions, energy use and consumption of natural resources, and it’s key to unlocking net zero,” said Al-Tabbaa. “This CDT will develop the next generation of highly talented doctoral graduates who will be equipped to lead the design and implementation of the net zero infrastructure agenda in the UK.”

̽��ֱ��FIBE3 CDT will provide more than 70 fully funded studentships over the next five years. ̽��ֱ��£8.1M funding from EPSRC is supported by £1.3M funding from the ̽��ֱ�� and over £2.5M from industry as well as over £8.9M of in-kind contributions. Recruitment is underway for the first FIBE3 CDT cohort, to start in October.

̽��ֱ��CDT in Sensor Technologies and Applications in an Uncertain World, led by Professor Clemens Kaminski from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, will cover the entire sensor research chain – from development to end of life – and will emphasise systems thinking, responsible research and innovation, co-creation, and cohort learning.

“Our CDT will provide students with comprehensive expertise and skills in sensor technology,” said Kaminski. “This programme will develop experts who are capable of driving impactful sensor solutions for industry and society, and can deal with uncertain data and the consequences of a rapidly changing world.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� is also a partner in:

EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in 2D Materials of Tomorrow (2DMoT), led by: Professor Irina Grigorieva from the ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training Developing National Capability for Materials 4.0 and Henry Royce Institute, led by Professor William Parnell from the ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Superconductivity: Enabling Transformative Technologies, led by Professor Antony Carrington from the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Aerosol Science: Harnessing Aerosol Science for Improved Security, Resilience and Global Health, led by Professor Jonathan Reid from the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Photonic and Electronic Systems, led by Professor Alwyn Seeds from ̽��ֱ�� College London

“As innovators across the world break new ground faster than ever, it is vital that government, business and academia invest in ambitious UK talent, giving them the tools to pioneer new discoveries that benefit all our lives while creating new jobs and growing the economy,” said Science and Technology Secretary, Michelle Donelan. “By targeting critical technologies including artificial intelligence and future telecoms, we are supporting world-class universities across the UK to build the skills base we need to unleash the potential of future tech and maintain our country’s reputation as a hub of cutting-edge research and development.”

“ ̽��ֱ��Centres for Doctoral Training will help to prepare the next generation of researchers, specialists and industry experts across a wide range of sectors and industries,” said Professor Charlotte Deane, Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation. “Spanning locations across the UK and a wide range of disciplines, the new centres are a vivid illustration of the UK’s depth of expertise and potential, which will help us to tackle large-scale, complex challenges and benefit society and the economy. ̽��ֱ��high calibre of both the new centres and applicants is a testament to the abundance of research excellence across the UK, and EPSRC’s role as part of UKRI is to invest in this excellence to advance knowledge and deliver a sustainable, resilient and prosperous nation.”

More than 4,000 doctoral students will be trained over the next nine years, building on EPSRC’s long-standing record of sustained support for doctoral training.

Total investment in the CDTs includes:

£479 million by EPSRC, including £16 million of additional UKRI funding to support CDTs in quantum technologies
Over £7 million from Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, also part of UKRI, to co-fund three CDTs
£16 million by the MOD to support two CDTs
£169 million by UK universities
plus a further £420 million in financial and in-kind support from business partners

This investment includes an additional £135 million for CDTs which will start in 2025. More than 1,400 companies, higher education institutions, charities and civic organisations are taking part in the centres for doctoral training. CDTs have a significant reputation for training future UK academics, industrialists and innovators who have gone on to develop the latest technologies.

Sixty-five Centres for Doctoral Training – which will train more than 4000 doctoral students across the UK – have been announced by Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan.

Phynart Studio via Getty Images

Two people working on circuit boards

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Cambridge researchers help develop smart, 3D printed concrete wall for National Highways project

sc604 — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 12:01:02 +0000

̽��ֱ��3D-printed structure – a type of retaining wall known as a headwall – has been installed on the A30 in Cornwall, where it is providing real-time information thanks to Cambridge-designed sensors embedded in its structure. ̽��ֱ��sensors provide up-to-date measurements including temperature, strain and pressure. This ‘digital twin’ of the wall could help spot and correct faults before they occur.

Headwall structures are normally made in limited shapes from precast concrete, requiring formwork and extensive steel reinforcement. But by using 3D printing, the team – including specialists from Costain, Jacobs and Versarien – could design and construct a curved hollow wall with no formwork and no steel reinforcement. ̽��ֱ��wall gets its strength not from steel, but from geometry instead.

̽��ֱ��wall – which took one hour to print – is roughly two metres high and three and a half metres across. It was printed in Gloucestershire at the headquarters of the advanced engineering company Versarien, using a robot arm-based concrete printer. Making the wall using 3D printing significantly saves on costs, materials and carbon emissions.

Over the past six years, Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa’s team in the Department of Engineering has been developing new sensor technologies and exploring the effectiveness of existing commercial sensors to get better-quality information out of infrastructure. Her team has also developed various ‘smart’ self-healing concretes. For this project, they supplied sensors to measure temperature during the printing process.

Temperature variations at different layers of the 3D-printed wall were continuously monitored to detect any potential hotspots, thermal gradients, or anomalies. ̽��ֱ��temperature data will be correlated with the corresponding thermal imaging profile to understand the thermal behaviour of the 3D-printed wall.

“Since you need an extremely fast-setting cement for 3D printing, it also generates an enormous amount of heat,” said Al-Tabbaa. “We embedded our sensors in the wall to measure temperature during construction, and now we’re getting data from them while the wall is on site.”

In addition to temperature, the sensors measure relative humidity, pressure, strain, electrical resistivity, and electrochemical potential. ̽��ֱ��measurements provide valuable insights into the reliability, robustness, accuracy, and longevity of the sensors.

A LiDAR system also was used to scan the wall as it was being printed to create a 3D point cloud and generate a digital twin of the wall.

“Making the wall digital means it can speak for itself,” said Al-Tabbaa. “And we can use our sensors to understand these 3D printed structures better and accelerate their acceptance in industry.”

̽��ֱ��Cambridge team developed a type of sensor, known as a PZT (Piezoceramic Lead-Zirconate-Titanate) sensor, which measures electromechanical impedance response and monitors changes in these measurements over time to detect any possible damage. These smart sensors can show how 3D-printed mortar hardens over time, while simultaneously monitoring the host structure’s health.

Eight PZT sensors were embedded within the wall layers at different positions during the 3D printing process to capture the presence of loading and strain, both during the construction process and service life after field installation.

̽��ֱ��team, which included experts in smart materials, automation and robotics and data science, also developed a bespoke wireless data acquisition system. This enabled the collection of the multifrequency electromechanical response data of the embedded sensors remotely from Cambridge.

“This project will serve as a living laboratory, generating valuable data over its lifespan,” said Al-Tabbaa. “ ̽��ֱ��sensor data and ‘digital twin’ will help infrastructure professionals better understand how 3D printing can be used and tailored to print larger and more complex cement-based materials for the strategic road network.”

Members of the team included Dr Sripriya Rengaraju, Dr Christos Vlachakis, Dr Yen-Fang Su, Dr Damian Palin, Dr Hussam Taha, Dr Richard Anvo and Dr Lilia Potseluyko from Cambridge; as well as Costain’s Head of Materials Bhavika Ramrakhyani, a part-time PhD student in the Department of Engineering, and Ben Harries, Architectural Innovation Lead at Versarien, who is also starting a part-time PhD in the Department of Engineering in October.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge team’s work is part of the Resilient Materials for Life Programme and the Digital Roads of the Future Initiative. ̽��ֱ��research is supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), and the European Union.

Cambridge researchers, working in partnership with industry, have helped develop the first 3D-printed piece of concrete infrastructure to be used on a National Highways project.

Making the wall digital means it can speak for itself, and we can use our sensors to understand these 3D-printed structures better and accelerate their acceptance in industry

Abir Al-Tabbaa

Cool Concrete – the smart, 3D printed concrete wall used for National Highways project.

National Highways

3D printed retaining wall

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Cambridge receives new funding to support PhD students in science and engineering

sc604 — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��funding, from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and industrial and institutional partners, will support the establishment of five new CDTs at Cambridge. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� will be a partner institution in an additional four new CDTs. ̽��ֱ��results of the latest CDT funding round were announced today by EPSRC at an event in London.

In total, EPSRC is supporting 75 new CDTs across the UK, representing a total investment of £446 million. ̽��ֱ��Centres’ 1,400 project partners have contributed £386 million in cash and in-kind support, and include companies such as Tata Steel and Procter and Gamble and charities such as Cancer Research UK. ̽��ֱ��funding represents one of the UK’s most significant investments in research skills.

Science and Innovation Minister Chris Skidmore said: “As we explore new research to boost our economy with an increase of over £7 billion invested in R&D over five years to 2021/22 – the highest increase for over 40 years – we will need skilled people to turn ideas into inventions that can have a positive impact on our daily lives.

“ ̽��ֱ��Centres for Doctoral Training at universities across the country will offer the next generation of PhD students the ability to get ahead of the curve. In addition, this has resulted in nearly £400 million being leveraged from industry partners. This is our modern Industrial Strategy in action, ensuring all corners of the UK thrive with the skills they need for the jobs of tomorrow.

“As Science Minister, I’m delighted we’re making this massive investment in postgraduate students as part of our increased investment in R&D.”

CDT students are funded for four years and the programme includes technical and transferrable skills training as well as a research element. ̽��ֱ��centres bring together diverse areas of expertise to provide engineers and scientists with the skills, knowledge and confidence to tackle today’s evolving issues and future challenges.

̽��ֱ��importance of developing STEM skills is a key part of the Government’s Industrial Strategy, ensuring that all areas of the UK embrace innovation and build the skills the economy needs to thrive.

̽��ֱ��five Cambridge-led CDTs are:

CDT in Future Propulsion and Power, led by Dr Graham Pullan (Department of Engineering)
CDT in Integrated Functional Nano (i4Nano), led by Professor Jeremy Baumberg (Department of Physics)
CDT in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment: Resilience in a Changing World (FIBE2), led by Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa (Department of Engineering)
CDT in Sensor Technologies for a Healthy and Sustainable Future, led by Professor Clemens Kaminski (Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology)
CDT in Automated Chemical Synthesis Enabled by Digital Molecular Technologies, led by Professor Matthew Gaunt (Department of Chemistry)

̽��ֱ��first cohort of students in the new CDTs will begin their studies in October.

Professor Lynn Gladden, EPSRC’s Executive Chair, said: “ ̽��ֱ��UK’s research base makes the discoveries that lead to innovations and these can improve lives and generate income for the UK. Centres for Doctoral Training have already proven to be successful in attracting the world’s brightest minds and industry support to address the scientific and engineering challenges we face. This new cadre will continue to build on previous investment.”

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has received new government and industrial funding to support at least 350 PhD students over the next eight years, via the creation of new Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs).

Photo by Sweet Ice Cream Photography on Unsplash

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge at the World Economic Forum 2016

cjb250 — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 10:56:46 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� will host an IdeasLab looking at how breakthroughs in carbon reduction technologies will transform industries. IdeasLabs are quick-fire visual presentations followed by workgroup discussion, and have proved a successful format for engaging various communities in academic thinking.

Carbon Reduction Technologies: ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge IdeasLab

Wednesday 20 January 16:15 - 17:30

Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor, will introduce this event, which will look at how research by Cambridge academics has led to breakthroughs in carbon reduction technologies that will transform a range of industries. Ideas to be discussed include:

Decarbonizing industrial-scale processes using virtual avatars
Self-healing concrete for low-carbon infrastructure
Improving solar materials efficiency using quantum mechanics
Quantum materials for zero-loss transmission of electricity

̽��ֱ��event is supported Energy@Cambridge, a Strategic Research Initiative that brings together the activities of over 250 world-leading academics working in all aspects of energy-related research, covering energy supply, conversion and demand, across a wide range from departments.

̽��ֱ��speakers, all members of the Strategic Research Initiative, are:

Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa, Department of Engineering

Professor Al-Tabbaa is a Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Infrastructure and Built Environment. She leads international work on sustainable and innovative materials for construction and the environment. Her particular expertise relates to low-carbon and self-healing construction materials, ground improvement, soil mix technology and contaminated land remediation.

Professor Sir Richard Friend, Department of Physics

Professor Friend is the Director of the Maxwell Centre and the Winton Fund for the Physics of Sustainability. He is the lead academic on one of Energy@Cambridge’s Grand Challenges – Materials for Energy Efficient Information Communications Technology.

Professor Friend’s research encompasses the physics, materials science and engineering of semiconductor devices made with carbon-based semiconductors, particularly polymers. His research group was first to demonstrate using polymers efficient operation of field-effect transistors and light-emitting diodes. These advances revealed that the semiconductor properties of this broad class of materials are unexpectedly clean, so that semiconductor devices can both reveal their novel semiconductor physics, including their operation in efficient photovoltaic diodes, optically-pumped lasing, directly-printed polymer transistor circuits and light-emitting transistors.

Professor Markus Kraft, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology

Professor Kraft is the director of the Singapore-Cambridge CREATE Research Centre and a principal investigator of the Cambridge Centre for Carbon Reduction in Chemical Technology (C4T), one of the Grand Challenges. C4T is a world-leading partnership between Cambridge and Singapore, set up to tackle the environmentally relevant and complex problem of assessing and reducing the carbon footprint of the integrated petro-chemical plants and electrical network on Jurong Island in Singapore.

Professor Kraft has contributed to the detailed modelling of combustion synthesis of organic and inorganic nanoparticles. He has worked on fluidization, spray drying and granulation of fine powders. His interested include computational modelling and optimization targeted towards developing carbon abatement and emissions reduction technologies.

Dr Suchitra Sebastian, Department of Physics

Dr Sebastian creates and studies interesting quantum materials - often under extreme conditions such as very high magnetic and electric fields, enormous pressures, and very low temperatures - with a view to discovering unusual phases of matter. Among these are the family of superconductors - which have the exciting property of transporting electricity with no energy loss - and hence hold great promise for energy saving applications. One of her research programmes is to create a new generation of superconductors that operate at accessible temperatures, thus providing energy transmission and storage solutions of the future.

Will Science Save Us?

Friday 22 January

̽��ֱ��Vice Chancellor and Dr Suchitra Sebastian will take part in a lunchtime discussion entitled Will Science Save Us?, which will look at how we accelerate scientific breakthroughs that address society's greatest challenges.

* * *

̽��ֱ��World Economic Forum is an independent international organisation engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas; this year’s theme is ̽��ֱ��Reshaping of the World: Consequences for Society, Politics and Business.

̽��ֱ��Forum will provide an opportunity for the Cambridge researchers to engage with decision-makers in business, NGOs and in public policy, and to highlight new ideas from Cambridge in responding to global challenges.

For further information or to contact any of the speakers, please contact the team at Energy@Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��Vice Chancellor of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is to lead a delegation of academics to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, in January 2016, to explore issues including carbon reduction technologies and how science and engineering can best address society's greatest challenges.

̽��ֱ��BlogSpot

Coal Fired Power Station (cropped)

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Health-conscious concrete

lw355 — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 12:10:47 +0000

Skin is renewable and self-repairing – our first line of defence against the wear and tear of everyday life. If damaged, a myriad of repair processes spring into action to protect and heal the body. Clotting factors seal the break, a scab forms to protect the wound from infection, and healing agents begin to generate new tissue.

Taking inspiration from this remarkable living healthcare package, researchers are asking whether damage sensing and repair can be engineered into a quite different material: concrete.

Their aim is to produce a ‘material for life’, one with an in-built first-aid system that responds to all manner of physical and chemical damage by self-repairing, over and over again.

Self-healing materials were voted one of the top-ten emerging technologies in 2013 by the World Economic Forum, and are being actively explored in the aerospace industry, where they provide benefits in safety and longevity. But perhaps one area where self-healing might have the most widespread effect is in the concrete-based construction industry.

Concrete is everywhere you look: in buildings, bridges, motorways, and reservoir dams. It’s also in the places you can’t see: foundations, tunnels, underground nuclear waste facilities, and oil and gas wells. After water, concrete is the second most consumed product on earth; tonne for tonne, it is used annually twice as much as steel, aluminium, plastic and wood combined.

But, like most things, concrete has a finite lifespan. “Traditionally, civil engineering has built-in redundancy of design to make sure the structure is safe despite a variety of adverse events. But, over the long term, repair and eventual replacement is inevitable,” said Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa, from the Department of Engineering and the lead of the Cambridge component of the research project.

̽��ֱ��UK spends around £40 billion per year on the repair and maintenance of existing, mainly concrete, structures. However, repairing and replacing concrete structures cause disruptions and contribute to the already high level of carbon dioxide emissions that result from cement manufacturing. What if the life of all new and repaired concrete structures – and in fact any cement-based material, including grout and mortar – could be extended from an average of several decades to double this, or more, through self-healing?

In 2013, researchers in Cambridge joined forces with colleagues at the Universities of Cardiff (who lead the project) and Bath to create a new generation of ‘smart’ concrete and other cement-based construction materials.

“Previous attempts in this field have focused on individual technologies that provide only a partial solution to the multi-scale, spatial and temporal nature of damage,” explained Al-Tabbaa. By contrast, this study, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, provides an exciting opportunity to look at the benefits of combining several ‘healthcare packages’ in the same piece of concrete.

“Like the many processes that occur in skin, a combination of technologies has the potential to protect concrete from damage on multiple scales – and, moreover, to do this in a way that allows ‘restocking’ of the healing agents over time,” she added.

Mechanical damage can cause cracks, allowing water to seep in; freezing and thawing can then force the cracks wider. Loss of calcium in the concrete into the water can leave decalcified areas brittle. And, if fractures are deep enough to allow water to reach the reinforcing steel bars, then corrosion and disintegration spell the end for the structure.

̽��ֱ��team in Cambridge is addressing damage at the nano/microscale by developing innovative microcapsules containing a cargo of mineral-based healing agent. It’s like having a first-aid kit in a bubble: the idea is that physical and chemical triggers will cause the capsules to break open, releasing their healing and sealing agents to repair the lesion.

“While various cargo and shell materials have been developed for other applications, from food flavouring and pharmaceuticals to cosmetics and cleaning products, they are not generally applicable to cement-based matrices and are far too expensive for use in concrete, which is why we have needed to develop our own,” explained Al-Tabbaa.

Another challenge is to make sure the capsules will be strong enough to withstand being mixed in a cement mixer, yet fragile enough to be broken open by even the smallest of fractures. Innovative capsule production techniques are being investigated that can be scaled up to deliver the huge volumes of capsules required for use in construction.

In parallel, the team in Bath is investigating healing at the mid-range micro/mesoscale with spore-forming bacteria that act as tiny mineral-producing factories, feeding on nutrients added to the cement and facilitating calcite precipitation to plug the cracks in the concrete. Different techniques for housing and protecting the bacteria and nutrients within the cement matrix are being investigated, including the capsules that are being developed at Cambridge.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cardiff researchers are engineering ‘shape memory’ plastic tendons into the cement matrix to close large cracks at the larger meso/macroscale through triggering of the shrinkage of the tendons by heat.

̽��ֱ��project team are then collectively addressing repeated damage through the creation of vascular networks of hollow tubes, like the circulatory system of a living organism, so that self-healing components can continually be replenished.

As the Cambridge researchers move closer to the best formulations for the microcapsules, they have begun collaborating with companies who can scale up the production to the levels required to seed tonnes of cement. Meanwhile, the three research groups are also beginning to test combinations of each of their techniques, to find the best recipe for maximum self-healing capability.

By the summer of 2015, with the help of industrial partners, field trials will test and refine the most promising combined systems in a range of real environments and real damage scenarios. This will include testing them in non-structural elements in the Department of Engineering’s new James Dyson Building.

“This is when it will become really exciting,” said Al-Tabbaa. “To be truly self-healing, the concrete needs to be responsive to the inherently multi-dimensional nature of damage, over long time scales. We want concrete to be a material for life that can heal itself again and again when wounded.”

Inset image: concrete microcapsules, credit Chrysoula Litina.

Roads that self-repair, bridges filled with first-aid bubbles, buildings with arteries… not some futuristic fantasy but a very real possibility with ‘smart’ concrete.

We want concrete to be a material for life that can heal itself again and again when wounded.

Abir Al-Tabbaa

Tanvir Qureshi

Healing material released when concrete microcapsules burst open

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

Yes

Cleaning up contaminated land

ns480 — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:45:15 +0000

Dr Abir Al-Tabbaa, Reader in Geotechnical Engineering at the Department of Engineering, provides the academic lead on a £1.24 million initiative that aims to develop a new technology for cleaning up the legacy of industrial contamination left in soil: heavy metals, petrol, tar, asbestos and other noxious waste. Remediation is needed both to protect the wider environment and to meet ever-increasing demands for housing and commercial developments on brownfield sites.

Project SMiRT (Soil Mix Remediation Technology) is the largest project funded by the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) on contaminated land remediation technologies to date. Leading the industrial component of the project is geotechnical contractor Bachy Soletanche, with the additional involvement of engineering consultancies, trade associations and materials suppliers.

‘Making previously developed sites safe for new development is an important but costly process, with government targets set at building 72% of new housing on brownfield sites and upwards of £400 million per year spent on remediation,’ explained Dr Al-Tabbaa. ‘ ̽��ֱ��technology that we are working on with Bachy Soletanche aims to achieve significant technical advances that will reduce the cost and time involved in this necessary process.’

Over the course of three years, the project will develop an integrated advanced Soil Mix Technology by designing and manufacturing novel equipment and employing suitable materials that can simultaneously improve land quality and deal with pollutants. An important element of the project will be to take this technology forward through consultation meetings with stakeholders and a dissemination programme. ‘This project is a unique opportunity to further develop soil mixing equipment in close parallel with materials technology,’ said Peter Barker of Bachy Soletanche. ‘ ̽��ֱ��aim is to provide new, cost-effective solutions for both the contaminated land and ground improvement sectors.’

For more information, please contact Dr Abir Al-Tabbaa (aa22@eng.cam.ac.uk).

A recently launched project that unites academia with industry is addressing the need to decontaminate ‘brownfield’ sites for redevelopment.

̽��ֱ��technology that we are working on with Bachy Soletanche aims to achieve significant technical advances that will reduce the cost and time involved in this necessary process.

Dr Al-Tabbaa

Magnus Franklin on Flickr

Contamination

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes