Dr Heshachanaa Rajanayagam

Qualifications:

FHEA(UK) MIET(UK) GMICE(UK) GREEN(SL)AP

Position:

Lecturer in Civil Engineering

Department:

FET - Engineering, Design and Mathematics

Telephone:

+441173281338

Email:

Heshachanaa.Rajanayagam@uwe.ac.uk

Social media:

About me

Heshachanaa is a Lecturer in Civil Engineering at UWE Bristol, where she works at the intersection of how buildings are made and how they can be made better (faster to assemble, lower in carbon, and safer to build). She brings over six years of research, teaching, and industry-facing development to a research identity built around modern methods of construction (MMC) and net-zero.

Her foundation is in modular and prefabricated building systems. Her PhD at Northumbria University, Newcastle focused on modular system components engineered to perform across four demanding fronts at once (fire, environmental, structural, and thermal) developing, modelling, and testing connection systems through the lens of design for manufacture and assembly (DfMA) and net-zero carbon construction. Through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (Innovate UK, graded Outstanding), she has taken this thinking from the lab toward industry, advancing inter-modular connection designs and exploring opportunities for standardisation in modular building construction. This same modular thinking also drives her interest in modular emergency and homeless shelters - dignified, durable, and quick to deploy.

More recently, she is developing the groundwork for safe human-robot collaboration in construction, and actively extending it into deep retrofit (the challenge of upgrading existing buildings with minimal disturbance to the people already living in them). With experience across UK, EU, and international research grant applications, her wider interests span novel and composite materials, advanced concrete technology (including 3D-printed structures), and resilient structural design.

As a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), she brings the same rigour to her teaching as to her research. She is recognised for creative, participatory approaches that make complex engineering ideas accessible to a diverse student body and she treats that work as something her students help shape, not just receive.

Recent Projects

MOD-FEST: Development of an innovative MODular building system with enhanced Fire, Environmental, Structural and Thermal performance.

Robotic Insulation Retrofit: Quality & Safety: Quality Standards and Safety Framework for Robotic Insulation Retrofit.

Nxt-Gen: Next-Generation Emergency Shelters: Lightweight, Reusable, and Deployable.

ME-HS: Modular Emergency & Homeless Shelters.

ME-HS in the UK: Unlocking Opportunities and Overcoming Challenges in Implementing Modular Emergency and Homeless Shelters in the UK.

Research Profiles

Research Gate – View Profile

Google Scholar – View Profile

Area of expertise

• Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) and net-zero carbon buildings
• Modular and prefabricated systems, DfMA, and connection design
• Steel, concrete, and timber interlocking and connection systems
• Sustainable and composite materials and build-up sections
• Structural, thermal, and fire design and analysis
• Safe human-robot collaboration and construction automation
• Deep retrofit and low-disturbance building renovation

Publications

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