Building
the sustainable
built environment.

The construction industry generates more than ten billion tonnes of construction and demolition waste annually, and in Kuwait alone C&D material accounts for roughly half of the national waste stream. This study investigates whether recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) — the same crushed material currently sent to landfill — can serve as a structural-grade replacement for natural coarse aggregate.

Six concrete mix designs were prepared at replacement levels of 0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, and 100%, cast as 4×8 in. cylinders, and tested per ASTM C39 after a 28-day curing period. The 40% replacement mix outperformed the control, with replacement levels above that threshold introducing significant variability tied to adhered mortar and excess fines. Findings align with ACI 318 guidance and frame RCA as a credible pathway for Kuwait’s 2040 Waste Management Strategy.

“Concrete production can be more environmentally and economically efficient without sacrificing performance — the data points clearly to a 40% RCA replacement as the practical optimum.”

A full life-cycle assessment of a geothermal power plant from construction through operation. The study analyzed raw-material extraction, transportation, and operational energy use across the plant’s lifecycle, and produced a final report identifying the construction phase as a disproportionate contributor to lifetime emissions.

The work fed into a broader conversation in the course about how renewable infrastructure is evaluated — not on operational cleanliness alone, but across embodied impact, decommissioning, and the supply chains that build it.

An evaluation of common engineering practices for predicting dam displacements and analyzing liquefaction-driven failures. The work included a displacement analysis of the San Fernando Dam — one of the canonical case studies in seismic geotechnical engineering — and a runout analysis for liquid embankments.

The study compared classical methods against modern practice and examined how engineering judgment is layered on top of code prescription when failures are catastrophic and historical data is limited.