Associate Professor Ehab Hamed
Associate Professor Ehab Hamed was drawn to the field of structural engineering where he saw an immense opportunity to find ways to enhance the safety and efficiency of civil engineering infrastructure in a constantly changing world. He saw the opportunity to contribute to the industry by providing structural solutions that are more economic, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly and sustainable.
One such area is the use of precast concrete that is commonly used in modern construction techniques. Precast concrete walling is a great alternative to traditional construction techniques. The benefits offered by precast walling along with the growing availability of mobile cranes and the rising cost of bricklaying, have seen precast panels becoming the product of choice in the Australian construction market. In many cases, however, precast concrete wall panels are used without enough research findings to support methodologies.
Dr Hamed is investigating various aspects of walls panels including creep effects in high-strength concrete panels and the design and analysis of modern insulating precast concrete sandwich panels. Sandwich panels are light in weight and energy efficient as they include an insulation foam material that is sandwiched between two thin concrete layers. He has developed new numerical models that are capable of predicting the structural response and has conducted novel experimental programs on full-scale panels that were not conducted elsewhere in the world. Through these he is hoping to gain a better understanding of the structural behaviour of these very popular construction elements.
Ultimately Dr Hamed aims to establish design guidelines and recommendations that will utilise their best advantages as energy-efficient and load carrying members – which will be extremely valuable from a practical perspective to design engineers. He aims to do that through his extensive involvement in national and international Standards committees. Amongst other roles he is a member of ACI (American Concrete Institute) Committee 209: Creep and Shrinkage in Concrete and ACI Subcommittee 209-0D: Numerical Methods and 3D Analyses, and a Member of Standards Australia’s AS3600 Sub-Committees: BD-002-01 Strength and Analysis of Concrete Structures, BD-002-07 Design for Serviceability of Concrete Structures.