Professor Mohammed Sonebi’s research is focused on sustainable construction materials, systems and structures, as a member of the Civil and Structural Engineering team, within the School of Natural and Built Environment.  He has an extremely impressive publishing record, having authored or co-authored more than 290 scientific papers and 34 books or book chapters (with high citations (6556, h-index:44). According to a study from October 2022 conducted by Stanford University, Sonebi is in the top one percent most cited scientists worldwide, in the discipline of building and construction. Here, Sonebi shares how the experience he gains from KTP projects contributes to his remarkable publications track record, his research work more broadly, and sharing knowledge.

How many KTP projects have you worked on, and how did they contribute to your Research?

“I have worked on very many KTP projects to date, from 2007, that have focused on concrete and its use in construction.” Too modest to say it, many of the projects Sonebi has worked on, and the project Associates have won a raft of Awards, including a number of UK-wide ones: the Best KTP Partnership with Bullivant Taranto and Excellence Engineering Awards 2013 UK (out of over 1000 UK academics).  Sonebi has worked with many of the major concrete construction materials companies in Northern Ireland. He decided to share how his involvement in three recent KTP projects with Tracey Concrete, AG Paving and Building Products and Moore Concrete have been of benefit to his own research work and how the sharing of knowledge is a continuous cycle.

“Being involved on KTP projects is a great help in gaining valuable new learning and findings from how products actually perform when used by a business in a real construction context.  We draw up on this to write up our findings in academic publications and also give presentations at conferences. It is very important for us academics to publish academic papers.”

Tracey Concrete

“Let me give you one example, from the extremely successful KTP project on self-compacting concretes with Tracey Concrete, that ran 2020-2022 to look at optimising the concrete mix of concrete pipes by replacing the more expensive limestone with other waste materials such as carbonate filler that perform just as well. From that project I co-authored and published four journal papers in 2022, with the Associate, Dr Ahmed Abdalqader, and in 2020, we published two ‘open access’ papers. Ahmed presented 3 papers on our findings in a series of prestigious international conferences (CMSS2021, ICBB2021, CERI 2021) between 2020 and 2022.  Ahmed, who took up a permanent post with Tracey Concrete, continues to help me and the School by coming in to give guest lectures to MEng Stage 4 students on his KTP and industry experiences. I too have kept in touch with Tracey Concrete and we have two or three other exciting ideas for further collaboration in the pipeline, one of which will concern the hot topic of carbon reduction in concrete manufacture.”

AG Paving and Building Products

Both the AG and Moore Concrete projects provided very good material that I could draw upon for developing Research Excellence Framework (REF) Case studies. The AG project focused on urban pavements and how changes in their construction materials might help to reduce heat in cities. The project was graded ‘Outstanding’ by Innovate UK, and Catherine Campbell, the KTP Associate, won the ‘Future Leader Award’ and at the 2022 Innovate UK National KTP Awards. Catherine supervises one current student’s research project, provides us with some physical construction materials for a PhD student to test, and also helps by giving guest lectures to my students, sharing her workplace experiences. She published 1 journal paper and presented 2 papers at international conferences (ICBB2021, CMSS2023).

Moore Concrete

“The most recent Moore Concrete project was the second I worked on with the company. It was researching the durability of their concrete products used in marine settings, such as sea defence. We also helped them on mix optimisation, especially in relation to carbon reduction.  The KTP Associate, Luke Oakes worked with them to test concrete mixes that would deliver good resistance to permeability, abrasion and chlorides important for use in sea water fixtures, be more resistant to sea corrosion and therefore more durable.  We formulated new concrete mixes.  Luke also helped my work by supervising my students who were working on self-compacting concrete and the permeability of concrete, sharing his own new findings.

KTPs summarised

Summing up, Sonebi said:

“I really enjoy working on KTP projects.  For me it is primarily about transferring knowledge from academia into real life projects and helping the company partners to benefit. Then too, I can share the learning from the practical, industrial settings back with academia, by publishing papers in academic journals and presenting papers at conferences. Plus, it keeps me up to date on new technological developments and their practical applications, particularly in respect to reducing our impact on the environment, through carbon reduction and product recycling. Concrete is a cocktail – we are constantly developing new, better mixes as ‘Master chef’! It is also very enjoyable to encourage junior colleagues in the School to become involved in KTPs.”