Dr. Imrana I. Kabir is currently a Lecturer in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, UNSW Sydney. She is actively involved in research in novel materials and designs aimed at developing new approaches to the thermomechanical response of fire conditions. Her current research foci are on flame-retardant, eco-composite, green, biodegradable, simulation of fire-resistant, multifunctional, photocatalyst, recyclable, and/or transformable materials. In addition to her B.E. and Ph.D. academic experience, she also has over 7 years of industrial experience spanning research, applications, and project engineering roles as well and project management responsibility. In this latter capacity, she completed a year-long, comprehensive, corporate, professional development program in the USA and Canada.
There are research projects for 4th year Honours thesis, Masters, and PhD students available in the fields of:
1. Fire behaviour modelling
Background: outdoor and indoor fires behaviour is turbulent and influenced by external ambient conditions, as a result it is not fully understood and makes it challenging to design buildings and outdoor environments safely
Objective: improve scientific understanding of fire spread and mitigation techniques
Methodology/approach: computational fluid dynamics modeling in specific selected situations
Expected learned skills: literature survey, fluid dynamics modeling, data analysis and visualization; AI and machine learning (if applicable)
2. Risk management and sustainable manufacturing
Background: fire-retardant materials are in growing demand and yet are applied unsystematically
Objective: create a risk assessment methodology that stems from unforeseen fire risks that persist in different industry settings and environments, including in manufacturing environments of the next generation technologies
Methodology/approach: analysis of field data regarding past fires
Expected learned skills: literature survey, data analysis, data presentation as a risk assessment framework.
3. Advanced fire protection
Background: fire-retardant materials are in growing demand and there is pressure to produce them in a sustainable way to reduce environmental impact
Objective: use of multi-functional carbon-based materials and polymer composites filled with bio-retardants and nanomaterials for advanced fire protection
Methodology/approach: small-scale laboratory testing and numerical simulations, may involve overseas field work
Expected learned skills: manufacturing, flammability assessment in controlled environment, literature survey, data analysis and presentation.
4. Bushfire risk at the wildland-urban interface
Background: growing scale of bushfires with increased global warming
Objective: understand and design prevention techniques to mitigate bushfire risk in suburban areas
Methodology: numerical analysis of field data, may involve overseas field work
Expected learned skills: statistics, data collection, literature survey, data analysis and visualization.
5. Propose your own topic in a related area or any other topic, I am happy to connect with you and support your research thesis.
Get in contact if you're interested...
UNSW students: Send me an email or drop by my office and I'd be happy to discuss prospective projects.
Aust/NZ students (non-UNSW): Drop me an email and check out the key dates for scholarship applications (https://research.unsw.edu.au/key-dates)
International students: Drop me an email and check out the key dates for international scholarships (https://research.unsw.edu.au/key-dates))
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6318-1855