My current research mainly focuses on the low carbon construction materials, particularly the application to offshore floating platforms. I am currently the PI for a Royal Society funded project "Fatigue failure mechanics of carbon-fibre textile reinforced concrete (CTRC) in the marine environment", to test the flexural fatigue behaviour of CTRC beams under seawater. I’m a Co-I (WP5 lead) of an EU funded project “Light-Weight High Performance Concrete for Modular Floating Structures – LITEFLOATCON”, to develop innovative light-weight high performance concrete and investigate its application on multi-purpose modular floating structures for marine space utilisation, where my responsibility is to lead the numerical simulation of coupled fluid-structure interaction of large floating concrete modular systems and investigate effects of various connectors on the overall structural performance of the modular system. I’m also a Co-I for EPSRC funded project “FlexWave – flexible responsive systems in wave energy (EP/V040367/1)”, where I’m responsible for finite element analysis of the flexible wave energy converters under wave loading.

I was the coordinator for an EU funded project “Tailor-made recycled aggregate concrete - TRAC” which aimed to promote the use of recycled aggregates in civil infrastructure. I was also the PI for an EPSRC funded Supergen ORE ECR award “Offshore floating foundations using self-sensing carbon fibre textile reinforced concretes”, to test the dual-functional properties of using carbon-fibre textiles as both reinforcement and sensor in concrete structures, and PI for a University of Plymouth Sustainable Earth Institute funded project “Use of tungsten tailing waste as replacement for cement” to investigate the feasibility of using tungsten tailings in making low carbon concrete materials.

Research Grants:

• Fatigue failure mechanism of marine concrete structures using multi-scale numerical modelling – FAMCON, Horizon Europe MSCA European Fellowship, €276k, 2025-2027 (Principal Supervisor, Grant Agreement to be signed)
• Coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction of Large Floating Concrete Modular Systems, University of Plymouth funded PhD studentship, £52k, 2024-2027 (1^st Supervisor)
• Light-weight High Performance Concrete for Modular Floating Structures – LITEFLOATCON, Horizon Europe MSCA Staff Exchange, €611.8k, 2023-2027 (Co-I, UoP lead)
• Fatigue Failure Mechanics of Polymer-modified Concrete in the Marine Environment, EPSRC DPT ORE and University of Plymouth co-funded PhD studentship, £121k, 2023-2027 (1^st Supervisor)
• Fatigue Failure Mechanics of Carbon-fibre Textile Reinforced Concrete in the Marine Environment, Royal Society, £60.5k, 2023-2025 (PI)
• Use of tungsten tailing waste as replacement for cement, Sustainable Earth Institute Small Collaboration Award, University of Plymouth, £3k, 2022 (PI)
• FlexWave - Flexible Responsive Systems in Wave Energy, EPSRC, £1m, 2021-2025 (Co-I)
• Offshore Floating Foundations Using Self-sensing Carbon Fibre Textile-reinforced Concretes, EPSRC Supergen ORE ECR fund, £5k, 2020 (PI)
• TRAC – Tailor-made Recycled Aggregate Concrete, European H2020-RISE project, €450k, 2018-2022 (Coordinator)
• RESET - REliability and Safety Engineering and Technology for large maritime engineering systems, European H2020-RISE project, €1.42m, 2017-2021 (participant)
• Durability of textile reinforced concrete in marine environment, Plymouth University and China Scholarship Council co-funded PhD studentship, £96k, 2017-2021. (1^st Supervisor)
• Structural performance of floating offshore structures, Plymouth University and China Scholarship Council co-funded PhD studentship, £110k, 2017-2021. (1^st Supervisor)

• Mr Saheed Yusuf (Jan 2024 - ongoing): Coupled Fluid-Structure Interaction of Large Floating Concrete Modular Systems (Director of Studies / 1st Supervisor) 
• Ms Zhenyi Yan (Oct 2023 - ongoing): Fatigue failure mechanics of low-carbon concrete in marine environment (Director of Studies / 1st Supervisor)
• Ms Anna Holcombe (Oct 2021 - ongoing): Motions and loads of dynamic power cables for floating offshore renewable energy applications (2nd Supervisor)
• Mr Feiyi Shi (Oct 2021 - ongoing): Mesoscale modelling for predicting effective properties of geopolymer concrete (2nd Supervisor)
• Mr Bin Zhang (Oct 2021 - ongoing): Coupled thermo-structural analysis of steel reinforced geopolymer concrete structural members (2nd Supervisor)

Completed PhD students: 

• Dr Jie Ji (2023): Bond Behaviour between Carbon Fibre Strand and Mortar under Marine Environment (Director of Studies / 1st Supervisor)
• Dr Qi Ye (2023): Structural analysis and design of semi-submersible platform for floating offshore wind turbines (Director of Studies / 1st Supervisor)

ENGR107 - Engineering Design

CIVL201 - Civil Engineering Practice 

CIVL500 - Finite Element Modelling and Analysis

2023 – present, Technical Committee member of FIB (Task Group 1.2: Concrete structures in marine environments)
2022 – present, Technical Committee member of RILEM (292-MCC: Mechanical characterization and structural design of textile reinforced concrete; 294-MPA: Mechanical properties of alkali-activated concrete; 297-DOC: Degradation of organic coating materials and its relation to concrete durability) 
2020 – present, Committee member of IStructE Southwest regional group
2019 – present, IStructE student staff liaison officer 

PhD Examination

• 2023, Dr Ali Marjan, Structural fatigue assessment and optimisation of offshore wind turbine jacket foundations, External Examiner, Cranfield University
• 2023, Dr Sifan Mohamed Muhamad Ibrahim, Development and Structural Applications of High Strength Concrete: Ultra High Performance and Lightweight High Strength Concrete, External Examiner, Northumbria University
• 2022, Dr Lixuan Mao, Modelling chloride transport in concrete, Chair, University of Plymouth
• 2021, Dr Nanting Yu, Buckling behaviour of perforated cold-form steel beams with web perforations, Internal Examiner, University of Plymouth
• 2020, Dr Kunjie Fan, Fire performance assessment of concrete with fly ash as the supplemental cementitious material, Internal Examiner, University of Plymouth
• 2019, Dr Sahar Elaiwi, Analysis and design of castellated beams, Internal Examiner, University of Plymouth