Dr Ali Kashani is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sustainable Construction and Churchill Fellow in Construction Automation and 3D Printing with extensive experience in research, development, and commercialisation of advanced and sustainable construction materials. One of his research area is 'Construction Automation' via development of novel high-performance materials and techniques for robot-aimed construction including 3D printing. His...view more

Dr Ali Kashani is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sustainable Construction and Churchill Fellow in Construction Automation and 3D Printing with extensive experience in research, development, and commercialisation of advanced and sustainable construction materials. One of his research area is 'Construction Automation' via development of novel high-performance materials and techniques for robot-aimed construction including 3D printing. His other main area of research is sustainable construction materials for 'Circular Economy' including wastes valorisation, carbon capturing and mineralisation, low-carbon construction materials, sustainable concrete, and alkali-activated materials (geopolymers).

My Grants

Selected major grants:

1. Alireza Kashani, Taehwan Kim, and Stephen Foster – Development of Sustainable Concrete with Glass Waste Mixes – An Innovation Connection Grant by XL Concrete and the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science

2. Tuan Ngo and Alireza Kashani – Demonstration and developing VicRoads’ specification for use of waste glass in concrete – Funded through a competitive R&D scheme of Sustainability Victoria in partnership with Level Crossing Removal Authority, KBR, John Holland, Hanson, and VicRoads

3. Tuan Ngo and Alireza Kashani – Impact-resistant concrete safety road barrier with recycled tyre – Funded through a competitive R&D scheme of Tyre Stewardship Australia in partnership with Saferoads and VicRoads

4. Tuan Ngo, Alireza Kashani, and Ailar Hajimohammadi – A novel application of recycled glass in lightweight concrete – Funded through a Competitive R&D scheme of Sustainability Victoria in partnership with PrefabAUS

5. Tuan Ngo and Alireza Kashani – Novel applications of recycled tyre in lightweight composite sandwich panels – Funded through a competitive R&D scheme of Tyre Stewardship Australia in partnership with PrefabAUS

My Awards

Churchill Fellowship for 3D printing of houses sponsored by AVJennings

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

3d printing

concrete

alkali-activated geopolymer concrete

automation

sustainability

timber

Areas of supervision

Scholarships may be available for research-enthusiastic local and international students with excellent academic grades

IMPORTANT NOTE: please use this self-assessment tool https://selfassessment.research.unsw.edu.au/ to see if you are eligible to apply for a PhD program (code:1630) and whether you might be able to get a scholarship. Then ONLY if you are eligible and likely to get a scholarship (or if you have your own scholarship), please email (ali.kashani@unsw.edu.au) the report of the self-assessment results with your CV and official transcripts.

Available research areas:

- CO2 mineralisation in concrete

- High-performance and sustainable construction materials and techniques for 3D printing

- Automated and prefabricated construction of timber, bricks, concrete, and composite structures (modelling and/or experiments)

- Next generation of sustainable concrete and composites

- Life-cycle assessment and Circular Economy in construction

Currently supervising

Current PhD Students:

Emad Golafshani – Developing a sustainable mix design of concrete containing waste materials using machine learning and metaheuristic optimization algorithms (co-supervisor: Dr Taehwan Kim)

Farid Vafadar – Mechanical behavior of Digitally Fabricated Concrete Archs (co-supervisor: Dr Hamid Valipour)

Zuobang Yao – Shrinkage behaviour of 3D printing alkali-activated materials (joint-supervised with Dr Taehwan Kim)

Mohsen Rezaei - Mixture Optimisation, Shrinkage Behaviour & Structural Integrity of 3D printed structures (co-supervised with Dr Aliakbar Gholampour and Prof. Tuan Ngo)

Hamid Bayat - Development of structural fibre-reinforced lightweight concrete for 3D printing (co-supervisor: Prof. David Carmichael)

Tian (Tori) Tang - A lightweight concrete solution for timber-concrete composite floor applications (co-supervised with Dr Xuemei Liu and Prof. Tuan Ngo)

Tianchun (Echo) Wang - Utilization of waste glass fines in concrete and evaluation of its alkali-silica reaction (co-supervised with Dr Rackel San Nicolas and Prof. Tuan Ngo)

Sachinthani Ayesha Karunarathna - A sustainable application of waste tyre in concrete road barriers (co-supervised with Dr Xuemei Liu and Prof. Tuan Ngo)

Former PhD students (graduated):

Dr Steven Linforth - Structural applications of auxetic geometries in buildings (joint-supervised with Prof. Tuan Ngo)

Dr Tuan Nguyen - Finite element analysis and multiscale modelling of concrete (joint-supervised with Prof. Tuan Ngo)

My Engagement

2021 - now	Chair – Cement and concrete working group at Materials & Embodied Carbon Leaders’ Alliance (MECLA)
2021 - now	NSW committee Member – Concrete Institute of Australia
2019 - now	Senior committee member – The International Union of Laboratories and Experts in Construction Materials, Systems and Structures (RILEM) technical of Measuring Rheological Properties of Cement-based Materials
2021 - now	Committee member – ASTM C09 - Concrete and Concrete Aggregates
2021 - now	Committee member – ASTM F42 - Additive Manufacturing Technologies
2018 - 2019	Academic member – Net Zero Concrete Industry Working Group
2018	Organiser – International Workshop on Circular Economy and Waste Utilization in Construction, Melbourne, Australia
2017	Organiser – The 1^st Workshop on Sustainable Valorisation of Waste Tyre and Recycled Glass in Civil Engineering Application, Melbourne, Australia
2019 - now	Associate Fellow in teaching and learning – the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE)
2016 - now	Member – Concrete Institute of Australia
2014 - now	Member – Australian Society of Rheology
2011 - 2014	Member – Particle Fluids Processing Centre, The University of Melbourne

2019 - 2021	Guest Editor of Journal of Applied Sciences (Q1, IF: 2.217) for the special issue of "Microstructures and Materials for Additive Manufacturing"
2020 - 2021	Associate Editor of Journal of Frontiers in Built Environment for the special topic of “Materials and Technologies Towards Low-Carbon Concrete’