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Personal details

Name
Dr Tatheer Zahra
Position(s)
Lecturer
Science and Engineering Faculty,
Civil Engineering and Built Environment,
Civil Engineering
Phone
+61 7 3138 5327
Email
Location
View location details (QUT staff and student access only)
Identifiers and profiles
ORCID iD LinkedIn
Qualifications

PhD (Queensland University of Technology)

Professional memberships
and associations
  • Member – Engineers Australia
  • Member – Pakistan Engineering Council

Biography

Background

Tatheer Zahra is a Lecturer in Structural Engineering at Queensland University of Technology with a vision to promote innovative engineering materials in construction. Masonry and Auxetic materials are the two main research interest areas.

With this commitment, Tatheer is investigating the behaviour of interlocking mortarless masonry in comparison to the conventional mortared masonry. Her experimental and numerical studies have shown that this masonry type has potential as a environmental friendly construction materials with less wastage and quicker construction time. Her research is not limited to moratless masonry and she is also assessing the behaviour of reinforced masonry shear walls for recent changes in earthquake hazard level of Queensland. She has also developed new genre Auxetic materials composites to enhance the performance of masonry and mortar renders under impact and various other loading.

She also possesses four years of professional experience in the areas of Prestressed concrete design, steel suspension bridges and concrete building design.

Research achievements 

Published 16 scholarly publications, including book chapter, journal and conference papers.

Received $50,000 from research assistance and industry partners to assess the serviceability of 100+ years old masonry arch bridges, mortarless masonry testing, mix design of coral concrete and auxetic composites development.

Supervising two doctoral candidates.

Research areas: Within the broad field of structural engineering research, Tatheer has focused on the following areas:

  • Mortarless masonry behaviour subject to various loading
  • Assessment of ancient masonry arch bridges
  • Reinforced masonry and concrete shear walls
  • Auxetic materials and composites and their application to masonry

Her research entails experimental tests, field investigations, computer modelling and simulations.

This information has been contributed by Dr Tatheer Zahra.

Teaching

Teaching areas

  • Civil Engineering Materials
  • Concrete Structures
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Structural Analysis
  • Masonry Structures
This information has been contributed by Dr Tatheer Zahra.

Experience

  • 2014 – present: Academic and Researcher, QUT. Currently, Lecturer in Structural Engineering, Science and Engineering Faculty
  • 2012 – 2014: Assistant Professor, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan
  • 2007 – 2011: Lecturer, Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan
  • 2000 – 2004: Design Engineer, AA Associates – Engineering Consultants and Planners, Pakistan

 Selected list of projects undertaken 

Tatheer’s research outcomes are of immediate relevance to masonry industry and she is collaborating with industry to promote mortarless masonry, reinforced masonry for better earthquake resistance and for assessing safety of ancient masonry arch bridges. In Pakistan, she  investigated the seismic behaviour of RC buildings, condition assessment of concrete buildings and performance of different cements in marine environment.

A selected list of projects undertaken include:

Performance of reinforced masonry and concrete shear walls

  • Experimental testing of shear walls for different reinforcement arrangements.
  • Finite element analysis of shear walls to validate the experimental results.
  • Numerical study for the effects of slenderness, concrete strength and reinforcement arrangements on the behaviour of shear walls.
  • This study is to verify the recent changes in AS3600-2018 and AS3700-2018  in the ductility, reinforcement contribution  and allowable slenderness of concrete and masonry shear walls.

Analysis of mortarless masonry for possible masonry design code revision

  • Finite element analysis of Auxetic rendered mortarless masonry under concentric and eccentric compression.
  • Proposed experimental testing to investigate the shear behaviour of mortarless masonry.
  • Proposed development of design equations for mortarless masonry to include in the design standards.

Serviceability assessment of masonry arch railway bridges  for Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC)

  • Monitoring of 100+ years old masonry railway arch bridges in Sydney using digital image correlation and flat jack testing technique for the serviceability assessment.
  • Measurement of damage, displacements, strains and stresses under moving train loads  using digital image correlation (DIC), flat jack tests and core tests.
  • Determination of safety based on the measured data.

Strategies to improve the response of drystack (mortarless) masonry to compression

  • Investigation on the contact surface properties of the drystack interlocking blocks sing matrix based tactile sensors and digital image correlation method.
  • Proposed suitable mitigation strategies through systematic experimental and numerical studies so that this masonry type could be constructed with ease and used as a structural system.
  • New genre Auxetic materials were used in the study for mitigating the surface unevenness and new mortar-auxetic renders were developed for drystack masonry to resist the water ingress, eccentric compression and out-of-plane loads.

Manufacturing and characterisation of auxetic foams and composites

  • Developed auxetic foams and auxetic mortar composites in lab.
  • Characterised under compression, tension and bending.
  • Studied application in masonry and other structures as protective renders.
This information has been contributed by Dr Tatheer Zahra.

Publications

For publications by this staff member, visit QUT ePrints, the University's research repository.