Enhanced the career prospectus of the researcher.
During this fellowship, the Researcher Dr Sun had significantly expanded his knowledge in the use of CFRP composites in construction industry by conducting a highly promising, emerging and inter-disciplinary research field in developing CFRP reinforcement systems for non-prismatic concrete beams. This will propel him to be one of the world leading experts in the innovative applications of FRPs in construction industry. The experimental, theoretical and numerical research skills and the ability to transform research results into developing designs that the Researcher has gained in this fellowship that is transferable helping him to reach professional maturity as an independent researcher. In addition to providing him the excellent research experience, the leadership and management abilities (e.g. project management, self and time management, scientific communication, teaching/supervision, mentoring junior colleagues, proposal writing, professional development training courses, etc.) as well as networking opportunities have enhanced his profile and his future career prospectus.
Quality of the proposed measures to exploit and disseminate the actions results.
Journal papers and conference presentations. It has resulted in two papers submitting in highly reputed international journals/conference to present the research results. Academic collaborations. The study has been gaining attention from academic peers. The light-weight and flexible reinforcements are considered as a perfect for 3D printed concrete which has built collaborations with Prof. Cavalaro, Prof. Buswell and Prof. Austin at Loughborough University. The project outcome have also been disseminated to research groups at a number of reputed Chinese Universities; namely Lanzhou University (invited by Prof. Zhang), Changan University (invited by Prof. Xing) and Quaqiao University (invited by Prof. Guo) taking the advantage of the Researcher’s contacts with them. Moreover, the research outcomes have been introduced to relative research groups at University of Leeds, University of Sheffield, Cardiff University, Queen’s University Belfast, and University of Nottingham during the researcher’s interview for a lecturer position. Dissemination to industry. The research outcomes have also been introduced to industrial firms and government agency, e.g. Arup, Ensoft and Fujian Province. Upon the outcomes, the researcher has developed an industrial proposal for an up to 3 million RMB Fujian-Province grants.
Potential impacts.
The outcome of the project has great potential to initiate a new paradigm in the EU construction industry that moves towards less material intensive and more sustainable industry within 10-15 year time scale. This will resolve a major existing barrier to achieving the long-term EU goal of reducing carbon footprint. The considerably less use of concrete will also help to reduce self-weight of the structures, and this will enable the use of thinner (smaller) structural elements providing further savings of the materials. The overall economic benefits of the proposed research to the construction industry is significant where in EU 2012, the construction industry contributed to ~€1500 billion in economic output, ~13 million jobs were in the construction industry.
