Background

Dr Sadegh Nadimi is an engineering scientist and Lecturer (Assist. Prof) in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. He holds a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from City, University of London and an MSc in Geotechnical Engineering from Newcastle University. Following the award of his doctorate, Sadegh moved to the University of Leeds as Post-doctoral Research Fellow to focus on tribology of particulate solids, working with Prof Mojtaba Ghadiri, FREng and Prof Anne Neville, FREng, FRS.

In 2014, Sadegh was awarded a full University Doctoral Scholarship to study the multiscale nature of soil at London Geotechnical Centrifuge Centre, City University of London, under the supervision of Dr Joana Fonseca and Prof Neil Taylor.  Before his PhD study, he joined an engineering consultancy for two years to supervise geotechnical site investigations.  He was involved in a world-class research project during his MSc at Newcastle University called the Round Robin Tunnel Test (organised by Universities of Cambridge and Napoli Federico II) to predict the centrifuge data by advanced finite element modelling.  He has gained a great deal of experience in repeatedly running large complex nonlinear numerical analyses.  He has been actively engaged in ground engineering research since the second year of his undergraduate course through his tutor’s industrial research work.

Sadegh is committed to advancing fundamental engineering research and teaching.  He is an associate fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) and has been involved in teaching since 2015. In July 2016, Sadegh was awarded the prize for the best presentation at the Young Geotechnical Engineers Symposium (YGES) organised by the British Geotechnical Association. 

Industrial Experience

2012-2014 Geotechnical Consultant at Barsoo Engineering – involved in site investigation and ground improvement projects

 Membership of Learned Societies

Member of British Geotechnical Association (BGA) since 2011.

Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy (HEA) since 2015.

Member of Institute of Physics (IOP) since 2018.

Member of International Technical Committee of ISSMGE (TC105, TC211, TC306) since 2019.

Research

Sadegh is accepting applications for PhD students.

Sadegh is available for consultancy.

 Research Interests

The research themes are wide ranging, but the main focus is on:

Fundamental characterisation and modelling of geomaterials

Multi-scale modelling of particulate media using Discrete Element Method

Image-based Geotechnics – application of imaging techniques, such as X-ray tomography, PIV, and DIC in particle characterisation, centrifuge modelling, offshore foundation, settlement monitoring, and so on.

Development of contact mechanics models for particles and geo-surfaces – application in foundation design, slope stability, landslide and etc.

Railway Engineering – Sanding in wheel/rail contact tribology, modelling degradation of ballasted track

 Funded Projects

2019-2021 Joint JSPS-Royal Society, International Exchanges 2018 Cost Share - IEC\R3\183026 with collaboration of University of Tokyo - Entitled: The role of particle shape and surface friction on interlocking phenomenon for granular materials. 

2018-2020 Newton Fund, Royal Academy of Engineering, with collaboration of University of Cape Town in South Africa - Entitled: CAPE Partnership – Characterisation Advances in Particle Engineering. 

 Consultancy Projects

2019 - Hewlett-Packard (hp) - Particle characterisation and modelling of metal 3D printing

 Postgraduate Supervision

Current Students

Vasileios Angelidakis (PhD student) Discrete element modelling of polyhedral particles: application to materials with highly angular grains

Cailin Wang (PhD student): X-ray tomography of corrosion products under environmental loading

Jack Collishaw (MSc 2019-20): Modelling fracturing process of sandstone

Ivan Cheung (MSc 2019-20): Modelling friction and abrasion in railway ballast

Nathan Freeman (MSc 2019-20): Numerical modelling of degradation of ballasted rail track

Zac Herrod (MSc 2019-20): Influence of grain shape on the dynamics of hillslope creep and landsliding

Thomas Kunnathu (MSc 2019-20): Surface characterisation of sand particles

Graduated Students

Mark Bradley (MSc 2018-19): An investigation of the effects of backing material on masonry arch bridges

 Esteem Indicators

Sadegh regularly reviews for 10 international journals, such as Géotechnique, Granular Matter, International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences,  International Journal of Mechanical Sciences, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, and ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Eng.

Member of Organising Committee of 16th European Symposium on Comminution & Classification (ESCC2019) at Leeds (UK) on 2nd-4th September 2019.

Member of Organising Committee of Powders and Granular Materials Challenges and Future Trends at Montpellier (France) 6th-7th June 2019.

Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching

Module leader for CEG8204 Ground Improvement Techniques

Undergraduate Teaching

Module leader for CEG2201 Geotechnics

Project Supervision

CEG8296 MSc Project and Dissertation in Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology

Publications

• Ghadiri M, Pasha M, Nan W, Hare C, Vivacqua V, Zafar U, Nezamabadi S, Lopez A, Pasha M, Nadimi S. Cohesive Powder Flow: Trends and Challenges in Characterisation and Analysis. KONA Powder and Particle Journal 2020, epub ahead of print.
• Ghadiri M, Matsusaka S, Pasha M, Nan W, Hare C, Vivacqua V, Zafar U, Nezamabadi S, Lopez A, Pasha M, Nadimi S. Rheometry of Cohesive Powder Flow. The Micromeritics 2020, 63, 3-12.
• Nadimi S, Otsubo M, Fonseca J, O'Sullivan C. Numerical modelling of rough particle contacts subject to normal and tangential loading. Granular Matter 2019, 21, 108.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J, Ando E, Viggiani G. A micro finite-element model for soil behaviour: experimental evaluation for sand under triaxial compression. Géotechnique 2019, epub ahead of print.
• Nadimi S, Ghanbarzadeh A, Neville A, Ghadiri M. Effect of particle roughness on the bulk deformation using coupled boundary element and discrete element methods. Computational Particle Mechanics 2019, ePub ahead of print.
• Skipper WA, Nadimi S, Chalisey A, Lewis R. Particle characterisation of rail sands for understanding tribological behaviour. Wear 2019, 432–433, 202960.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. Image based simulation of one-dimensional compression tests on carbonate sand. Meccanica : An International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics 2019, 54(4-5), 697–706.
• Ghadiri M, Bonakdar T, Nadimi S. Breakage of Particles in Gas Phase. In: Ko Higashitani, Hisao Makino, Shuji Matsusaka, ed. Powder Technology Handbook. CRC Press, 2019, pp.584. In Press.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. A micro finite-element model for soil behaviour. Géotechnique 2018, 68(4), 290-302.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. A micro finite element model for soil behaviour: numerical validation. Géotechnique 2018, 68(4), 364-369.
• Nan W, Pasha M, Bonakdar T, Lopez A, Zafar U, Nadimi S, Ghadiri M. Jamming during particle spreading in additive manufacturing. Powder Technology 2018, 338, 253-262.
• Nan W, Pasha M, Bonakdar T, Lopez A, Zafar U, Nadimi S, Ghadiri M. Corrigendum to “Jamming during particle spreading in additive manufacturing” [Powder Technol. 338 (2018) 253–262]. Powder Technology 2019, 347, 255-255.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. Single grain virtualisation for contact behaviour analysis on sand. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering 2017, 143(9), 06017010.
• Le BT, Nadimi S, Goodey RJ, Taylor RN. System to measure three-dimensional movements in physical models. Géotechnique Letters 2016, 6(4), 256–262.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. Enhancing soil sample preparation by thermal cycling. Géotechnique 2016, 66(11), 953-958.
• Fonseca J, Nadimi S, Reyes-Aldasoro CC, OSullivan C, Coop MR. Image-based investigation into the primary fabric of stress transmitting particles in sand. Soils and Foundations 2016, 56(5), 818-834.
• Otsubo M, Liu J, Dutta TT, Kuwano R, Nadimi S. Influence of Particle Shape on Stiffness and Strength Anisotropy of Pluviated Granular Materials. In: VI International Conference on Particle-Based Methods. 2019, Barcelona: International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).
• Nadimi S, Otsubo M. Effect of Grain Morphology on Contact Behaviour. In: VI International Conference on Particle-Based Methods. 2019, Barcelona: International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. A laboratory-based technique for grain size and shape characterisation. In: The XVII European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. 2019, Reykjavik, Iceland: The Icelandic Geotechnical Society.
• Safari M, Nadimi S, Deglon D, Filho L, Souza T. Investigating the Effect of Particle Characteristics on Iron Ore Separation using X-ray Micro Tomography. In: 16th European Symposium on Comminution & Classification (ESCC 2019). 2019, Leeds: University of Leeds.
• Ghadiri M, Nadimi S, Pasha M, ed. 16th European Symposium on Comminution and Classification: book of extended abstracts. Leeds: University of Leeds, 2019.
• Nadimi S, Skipper W, Ghadiri M, Lewis R. DEM Insight on Manipulating Friction by Rail Sanding. In: 8th International Conference on Discrete Element Methods. 2019, The Netherlands.
• Nadimi S, Pencheva P, Ghadiri M. DEM Simulation of Mechanofusion System. In: 8th International Conference on Discrete Element Methods. 2019, The Netherlands.
• Nadimi S, Bai M, Inkson B, Neville A, Ghadiri M. The role of glidants in interparticle friction. In: International Congress on Particle Technology (PARTEC 2019). 2019, Nuremberg, Germany: PARTEC.
• Nadimi S, Ghanbarzadeh A, Ghadiri M, Neville A. Discrete element modelling of shear deformation of rough particles. In: 6th European Conference on Computational Mechanics (ECCM 6); 7th European Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics (ECFD 7). 2018, Glasgow, UK: International Centre for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE).
• Fonseca J, Nadimi S, Kong D. Image-Based Modelling of Shelly Carbonate Sand for Foundation Design of Offshore Structures. In: Proceedings of the 1st Vietnam Symposium on Advances in Offshore Engineering. 2018, Hanoi, Vietnam: Springer.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. On the tensile strength of soil grains in Hertzian response. In: 8th international conference on micromechanics on granular media. 2017, Montpellier, France: EPJ Web of Conferences.
• Nadimi S, Di Pasquale L, Fonseca J. Influence of fine fraction on breakage of binary granular materials. In: 19th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. 2017, Seoul, South Korea: International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J. On the torsional loading of elastic-plastic spheres in contact. In: 8th International Conference on Micromechanics on Granular Media. 2017, Montpellier, France: EPJ Web of Conferences.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J, Barreto D, Taylor RN. A new approach to investigate the particle size effects in centrifuge modelling. In: 3rd European Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics. 2016, Nantes, France.
• Nadimi S, Divall S, Fonseca J, Goodey R, Taylor RN. An addendum for particle image velocimetry in centrifuge modelling. In: 3rd European Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics. 2016, Nantes, France.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J, Besuelle P, Viggiani G. A microstructural finite element analysis of cement damaging on Fontainebleau Sandstone. In: 2nd International Conference on Tomography of Materials and Structures. 2015, Québec, Canada: INRS-ETE.
• Nadimi S, Fonseca J, Taylor RN. A microstructure-based finite element analysis of the response of sand. In: 6th international symposium on deformation characteristics of geomaterials. 2015, Buenos Aires, Argentina: IOS Press.
• Elia G, Rouainia M, Nadimi-Shahraki S. Blind prediction of the seismic response of tunnels. In: World Tunnel Congress (WTC2013) Underground: The Way to the Future!. 2013, Geneva, Switzerland: Taylor & Francis.