Dr Yuvaraj Dhandapani

Profile

I work as a lecturer at the Institute of Functional Surface, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, UK. 

Prior to this, I was a Research Fellow (Nov 2020 2024) in the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, UK, where I was a member of the RENACEM (UK & US) project team, which focuses on the carbonation performance of concrete and a member of the EUREKA project. 

I hold a PhD in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), Chennai, India. My PhD thesis work, titled ‘Composite cement with limestone additions – microstructure and transport properties’, was a part of the global low carbon cement project (Limestone Calcined Clay Cement, LC3) funded by the Swiss Council for Development and Cooperation.

I have been an active member of RILEM since 2016 and have been actively involved in several technical committees, including RILEM TC-SCM, TC-CCL, TC-CCC and TC-TRM. I also actively contribute to different working groups and round-robin testing programs as a part of RILEM.

Research interests

Evolving concrete science to develop binding materials for sustainable future

Modern city space is often called a concrete jungle. Cement and concrete are some of the most significant developments in the last two centuries, and they have led to massive scaling up of infrastructure development across the world. Consumption of concrete stands at over several billion tons. It is essential to engineer concrete for different purposes to ensure the durability and longevity of constructed facilities. Despite being the building blocks of infrastructure and building systems, concrete is also considered as a material which consumes an extensive amount of natural resources (See the article, Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth). Resources consumption occurs at multiple levels, including raw materials for the production of binding materials (i.e., cement), quarrying mountains to produce aggregate, extraction of sand from the river bed and finally, the use of fresh water to produce concrete. Most importantly, conventional binding materials is one of the significant contributors to global CO2 emission. It is of utmost importance to develop binding materials to replace and substitute the emission-intensive Portland cement, which is one of the major sources of emission controls. Developing alternatives for cementitious materials from widely available resources and integrating waste materials into the materials flow cycle in cementitious materials is of utmost importance for a sustainable future

Durability and long-term performance of concrete structures – An alarming problem

One of the major ways to improve the sustainable use of cement and concrete is by improving the efficiency of construction materials so that they remain durable in an aggressive environment. The concrete structure is often built-in aggressive environments and subjected to deterioration due to several factors. Interaction of the chlorides and atmospheric CO2  is one of the primary durability concerns for a concrete structure. This is a more alarming concern for the new generation of construction materials, which are more prone to carbonation than conventional ones. Several new formulations of construction materials are being developed where conventional wisdom and standards developed based on Portland cement would no longer suffice. One of my major research centres on applying some cutting-edge characterisation techniques to address the problem at a more fundamental level to evolve a better scientific understanding of the structure-property relationship in complex binding materials, which would improve the adoption of the new-gen materials in concrete construction.

My specific research interests centres on:

• Durability of concrete infrastructures
• Low-carbon construction materials
• Pore structure and Transport properties
• Long-term performance in aggressive environments
• Circular construction

Qualifications

• PhD (Civil Engineering), IIT Madras (2015-2020)
• M.S. (Civil Engineering), IIT Madras (2014-2015)

Professional memberships

• RILEM
• Indian Concrete Institute
• IOM3

Research groups and institutes

• Institute of Functional Surfaces
• Materials and Structures