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Fire spalling of high strength concrete (> 100 MPa) could even occur inside a steel tube! To delay/avoid the explosive failure of concrete, #fireprotection (such as using coating) is inevitable for such composite columns.

We conducted fire tests on concrete-filled steel columns made with high strength concrete and high strength steel (nominal yield stress of 690 MPa) in the structures lab at Western Sydney University. An unprotected composite column only survived 25 min before fire spalling of the internal concrete occurred. Protected by 20-mm thick #flyash-based fire protection coating developed through the ARC Nanocomm Hub Program in collaboration with Nu-Rock Corporation SARL, the protected column with a load level of 0.4 lasted for over 3 h! This demonstrates the effectiveness of our coating material in protecting composite columns in case of fire events. Despite the protection, explosive failure of concrete still occurred at the end of testing, which was recorded in the following video.

There is an urgent need to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. According to the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) in Australia, all new houses or renovations require a minimum six-star, which will be further increased to seven stars next year. But house energy ratings of existing houses are often less than 2 stars.

We incorporated phase change material (PCM) into gypsum board and found that there is a synergy between the PCM board and thermal insulation. They can be used in combination to improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings. For a typical house, our simulation demonstrates that the optimal combination of PCM board and insulation in Darwin, Alice Springs and Sydney can improve the energy ratings of the house by 3.5, 3.8 and 4.3 stars in the three cities, respectively.

So glad that pv magazine (published by pv magazine Global) further reported our recent research results "Effect of reflective coating on thermal and electrical performances of solar roof tiles" published by Energy Conversion and Management (https://lnkd.in/gFk3hpsv).

pv magazine Global is the leading global solar PV trade magazine, online news and events platform. Thank the Editor EMILIANO BELLINI for reporting our work. Congratulations again to all authors Dr Md Abdul Alim, Xiaojing Hao, Nariman Saeed (PhD, FIEAust, CPEng, NER), Md. Jaynul Abden and Ataur Rahman for this work.

Very glad that our latest research results on solar roof tiles will be published in the journal of Energy Conversion and Management!

We conducted the first-ever research which used reflective coating to reduce the surface temperature of solar roof tiles to improve electrical efficiency. It was found that the surface temperature could be reduced by over 10 °C, and the electrical efficiency could be improved by up to 6.6%.

Our article is published on The Conversation! Very proud of Alim and his achievements with the team led by Ataur Rahman!

https://lnkd.in/gTKwSeBY

Indeed, it is very important to get safe drinking water from harvested rainwater!

Carbonate-activated geopolymer or alkaline cement has relatively low strength because of the slow reaction. Very pleased to address this issue in our latest paper accepted by the journal of Construction and Building Materials (https://lnkd.in/g6fQ87XW).

It is very exciting to find out that the 28-day compressive strength of the alkaline cement could be improved from 38.5 MPa up to 72.4 MPa by just adding 1 wt.% sodium or potassium citrate to the mixture! Compared with ordinary Portland cement, the alkaline cements’ greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by up to 73%, and their costs can be reduced by up to 28%.

Congratulations to Qingtao (Edward) Huang, Dr Zhu Pan, Dr Richard Wuhrer, and Maroun G M Rahme for this interesting work!

A new PhD Scholarship at Western Sydney University is available for application and the candidate will work on a topic entitled "Behaviour of Steel Columns Filled with Concrete Incorporating High Volume Waste Glass"!

This research is part of a recent Discovery project funded by the Australian Research Council, which aims to provide a solution to the waste glass problem facing the global. We have successfully developed waste glass-based concrete by fully replacing sand and gravel with crushed glass and up to 72% cement with glass powder.

The candidate will receive a tax-free stipend of $33,106 (AUD) per annum for up to 3 years to support living costs with a tuition fee waiver.

If you are interested in the application, please contact me to discuss it further (z.tao@westernsydney.edu.au). More details and how to apply can be found from the following link:

https://bit.ly/3aCxRNH

Very glad to submit our final report (project C29057, Value-Added Products from Coal Tailings) to ACARP AUSTRALIAN COAL RESEARCH LIMITED!

Through the over two years' research, we found that it is viable to turn coal tailings into aggregates for road base/subbase and soil conditioners for agricultural applications. This will not only reduce the impact of tailings on our environment but also generate avenue from coal wastes. The full report will be published on the ACARP website in the near future: https://lnkd.in/dyn7e5fr

I would like to thank Prof Zhonghua Chen (co-leader of this project) and all other research team members, including Utsab Katwal, PhD, Atousa Khazaie, MiingTiem Yong, Soheil Jahandari - Director of Chem Concrete, Mohammad Babla, and Dr Md Abdul Alim, for their dedication and tireless efforts. We also received tremendous support from the industry, including Luke Dimech, Maroun G M Rahme, Dave Osborne, Alistair Harriman, and Daniel Rahme. Their mentoring and advices are key to the success of this project. The financial support of ACARP is also greatly appreciated. Last but not least, I would like to thank the support from the School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment and Western Sydney University for this project. Hope the research results will be adopted by the industry in the near future.

On behalf of the research team, I will also present the research results in the forthcoming AWARE 2022 conference (International Conference On Assessing Waste And Recycle). I am humbled and honoured to be invited to give a Keynote speech (https://lnkd.in/d-ByxD9u).

Very very glad with the amazing results of our field trial of tailings-based soil conditioners on tomato plants, leading to increased tomato yield by 11.1%!!!

We just picked up all tomato fruits from the field and got the amazing results. The soil conditioners developed by us in the last two years improved not only the yield but also fruit firmness (good for transportation) and amount of nutrients (brix content). Furthermore, the water retention capacity and microbial activities of the soil are also greatly improved!

We also conducted a cost-benefit analysis, which proves that the net benefit from the application of the soil conditioners reaches $4,600 per ha per season because of the increased yield. It is expected that similar benefits can be achieved on other plants. The products should also be very suitable for mine rehabilitation. Would be very happy to collaborate with anyone with interest in this technology (including coal mines) to explore opportunities. Anyone interested in this can contact me by email at z.tao@westernsydney.edu.au. Really hope our research can have an impact on community.

I cannot thank the team members enough for their two-year hard work, including Zhonghua Chen, MiingTiem Yong, Utsab Katwal, PhD, Mohammad Babla, and many others. Special thanks also go to Luke Dimech, Maroun G M Rahme, Dave Osborne, and Alistair Harriman for their excellent guidance and support. The funding support from AUSTRALIAN COAL RESEARCH LIMITED is also highly appreciated.

So glad our #flyash-based fire protection coating passed the real fire tests! In the structures lab at Western Sydney University, a unprotected high strength steel column with a nominal yield stress of 690 MPa only achieved a fire resistance of about 20 min. But the column protected by our coating with a thickness of 25 mm reached about 3 h under an axial load level of 0.5! The video below shows the last 10 min of the column in the furnace prior to failure (local buckling).

This project is part of the ARC Nanocomm Hub Program in collaboration with Nu-Rock Building Products. Congratulate Qingtao (Edward) Huang and Utsab Katwal, PhD for this achievement! I would like to thank Maroun G M Rahme, Wenhui Duan FTSE and many others for supporting this project.

We will conduct further research to develop design guidelines for using our #fireprotection coating.

Very glad we just finished all required tests in developing a #sustainable fire protection coating at Western Sydney University. Congratulate Qingtao (Edward) Huang for reaching this milestone! So far, we have finished tests on density, compressive strength, adhesion, combustibility, thermal properties, surface burning, air erosion, corrosion, deflection and bond impact. After the impact testing, no spalling, delamination or cracking was found in the coating beneath the slab.

Collaborating with Nu-Rock Building Products, this novel
spray-applied fire-resistive material (SFRM) has excellent properties and cost effectiveness. Particularly, we used fly ash as the major ingredient in the SFRM, which is a waste product generated from thermal power plants. This project is part of ARC Nanocomm Hub Program. I would like to thank Maroun G M Rahme, Wenhui Duan FTSE and many others for supporting this project.

We will further test the real performance of the SFRM for protecting steel structures in fire in the next few months. Looking forward to the commercialisation of this product in the future.

We reached a milestone in testing our coal tailings-based soil conditioners!

Yesterday, we applied the first batch of the soil conditioners to tomato plants in the field. Thanks the hard work of the team members, including Zhonghua Chen, Mr Miingtiem Yong, Utsab Katwal, PhD, Mohammad Babla, and many others. Special thanks also go to Maroun G M Rahme, Dave Osborne, and Luke Dimech for their excellent guidance and support. The funding support from Australian Coal Association (ACARP) is also highly appreciated.

We are also conducting parallel testing in a greenhouse. The application of our soil conditioners has greatly increased the number of tomato flowers. We expect increased yield as well!

So thrilled to share that our ARC LIEF grant application for "National Facility for Physical Fire Simulation" is successful!

We will build a number of very large fire testing furnaces at Western Sydney University to test structural and non-structural members and systems (columns, beams, slabs, walls, joints, frames, facades and more...). This much needed Facility at WSU will serve academia, industry & government agencies in Australia and beyond!

We formed an amazing research team, including Professor Yixia (Sarah) Zhang, Bijan Samali, Brian Uy, Xiao Lin (Joshua) Zhao, Prof. Hong Hao, Prof. Abhijit Mukherjee, Scott Smith, Yan Zhuge, Amin Heidarpour, Dao Ngoc The Vinh, Wengui Li, Kate Nguyen, Farhad Aslani, and myself.

This success is not possible without the support from Western Sydney University, University of Sydney, UNSW, Curtin University, University of Adelaide, University of South Australia, Monash University, The University of Queensland, University of Technology Sydney, RMIT University and The University of Western Australia.

Looking forward to working with my colleagues to get the facility built and installed as soon as possible!

We studied the possibility of turning coal wastes and organic wastes into revenue-earning products of environmental and economic values in the form of pellets for soil conditioning. This is highlighted in our new article "Value-added products as soil conditioners for #sustainable #agriculture" in the journal of Resources, Conservation & Recycling.

Based on the project funded by the Australian Coal Association Research Program (No: C29057), we have turned this into reality and successfully developed coal tailings-based soil conditioners. We are conducting field trials on the growth of tomato.

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