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Dr. Khaled Sennah
Professor
BSc, MASc, PhD, PEng
DepartmentCivil Engineering
Areas of ExpertiseBridge Design, Evaluation, and Rehabilitation; Advanced Composite Materials in Bridges and Structures; Structural dynamics; Steel, Concrete, and Timber Design, Experimental Testing, Product Certification, Ultra-high-performance Concrete and Fiber-reinforced Concrete.
Areas of Academic Interest
Bridge analysis, design, evaluation and rehabilitation
Advanced composite materials in bridges and structures
Structural dynamics
Steel, concrete and timber design
Experimental Testing
Bridge Testing
Product Certification
Ultra-high-performance Concrete and Fibre-reinforced Concrete
Spotlight
Did you know that glass could be as strong as steel? Khaled Sennah does. An expert in the design, evaluation, rehabilitation and retrofit of highway bridges, a good portion of Sennah’s 15-year collaboration with Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) has been spent demonstrating this counterintuitive truth. "Not only are glass fibre bars as strong as steel, but because of their corrosion-resistance they can save taxpayers’ money on bridge maintenance," he says.
In 2010, Sennah’s team designed a new concrete bridge safety barrier using glass bar reinforcements. Travelling to Texas, they staged a dramatic test by building a 40-metre barrier and driving a tractor trailer into it at 80 kilometres per hour. The barrier held up exactly as planned. Bolstered by those results, they moved on to similar projects with partners in Quebec and Ontario with equally positive results.
"Based on those projects, several bridge owners established new standards for that type of sustainable concrete barrier," says Sennah. Since then, contracting companies and consulting firms have been using drawings based on work done by Sennah and his team when bidding for contracts—positioning glass as the reinforcement of choice in the industry.
Khaled's LinkedIn Profile (external link, opens in new window)
“Here at TMU, they do everything possible to facilitate our teaching and research. In return, we put more into our work. We work from our hearts.”
- 2025: Elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
- 2025: Recipient of the Horst Leipholz Medal from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering (CSCE) for outstanding contributions to engineering mechanics or structural dynamics research and/or practice in Canada
- 2024: Recipient of Best Paper Award from the 9th International Conference on Civil, Structural, and Transportation Engineering (ICCSTE’24), held in Toronto, Canada, June 13-15, 2024.
- 2023: Recipient of the IAAM Scientist Medal from the International Association of Advanced Materials for distinctive contributions towards the fields of Structural and Engineering Materials.
- 2023: Recipient of the 2023 TFA Career Achievement Award, Toronto Metropolitan Faculty Association, Toronto Metropolitan University.
- 2023: Recipient of the 2022 Errol Aspevig Award for Outstanding Academic Leadership, Toronto Metropolitan University.
- 2022: Elected Fellow of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM), in recognition of his contribution to “Innovative Solutions in Structural Design and Construction”, Sweden.
- 2022: Recipient of the 2022 Dean’s Teaching Award, Toronto Metropolitan University.
- 2020: Recipient of the Best Paper Award from the 5th International Conference on Civil, Structural, and Transportation Engineering (ICCSTE’20), held in Canada in November 2020.
- 2020: Certificate of Recognition from the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) for being the ASCE 2019 Outstanding Reviewer for the ASCE Journal of Composites for Construction.
- 2020: Recipient of the 2020 P. L. Pratley Award for best paper in bridge engineering in Canada, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering.
- 2017: Elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE).
- 2016: Elected Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC).
- 2014: Certificate of Appreciation from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering for serving as Chair of the CSCE Structures Division for two terms (2010-2014).
- 2014: Certificate of Appreciation from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering for serving as the National Chair of the 4th International Structural Specialty Conference, Halifax, Canada.
- 2013: Recipient of the 2013 A.B. Sanderson Award, given to ”recognize outstanding contributions by a civil engineer to the development and practice of structural engineering in Canada. This contribution may be either in the area of Development, Design, or Education.”
- 2012: Certificate of Appreciation from the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering for serving as the National Chair of the 3rd International Structural Specialty Conference, Edmonton, Canada.
- 2011: Elected Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE).
- 2006: Recipient of the 2006 Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Science Award for Research Excellence, Ryerson University.
- 2005: Recipient of the 2005 Ryerson Research Award for Research Excellence, Ryerson University.
- 2004: Recipient of the 2004 Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science Teaching Excellence Award, Ryerson University.
- 2002: Recipient of the 2002 State-of-the-Art in Civil Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers for best journal paper published in ASCE journals.
- 2002: Recipient of the 2002 GREET Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching, Ryerson University (GREET, Group to Renew and Enhance Effective Teaching, is a University-level teaching award).
- 1999: Recipient of the 1999 Arthur Wellington Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for the best journal paper in transportation-related infrastructure research.
- 1998: Recipient of the 1998 Governor General's Gold Medal for academic excellence at the graduate level from the University of Windsor.
- 1998: Recipient of the 1998 P. L. Pratley Award for best journal paper in bridge engineering published in the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering.
- 1985: Recipient of the Egyptian Engineers Syndicate Award for excellence at the undergraduate level.
- 1980-1985: Recipient of the Ministry of Higher Education Award, given for consistently high academic standing (Distinction in each academic year) in undergraduate studies, Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University, Egypt.
- Sennah, K., and Mostafa, A. 2018. Performance of a Developed TL-5 Concrete Bridge Barrier Reinforced With GFRP Hooked Bars: Vehicle Crash Testing. ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering, 23(2): 1-20.
- Rostami, M., Sennah, K., and Afefy, H. 2018.Ultimate Capacity of Barrier-Deck Anchorage in MTQ TL-5 Barrier Reinforced with Headed-End, High-Modulus, Sand-Coated GFRP Bars. Canadian Journal for Civil Engineering, 45: 263–278.
- Androus, A., Afefy, H., and Sennah, K. 2017. Investigation of free vibration and ultimate behavior of composite twin-box girder bridges. Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 130: 177-192.
- Wodzinowski, R., Sennah, K., and Afefy, H. 2017. Free Vibration Analysis of Horizontally Curved Composite Concrete-Steel I-Girder Bridges. Journal of Constructional Steel Research, 140 (2018) 47–61.
- Islam, S., Afefy, H., Sennah, K., and Azimi, H. 2015. Bond characteristics of straight- and headed-end ribbed-surface GFRP bars embedded in high-strength concrete. Journal of Construction & Building Materials, UK, 83: 283–298.
- Associate Editor, Canadian Journal for Civil Engineering
- Member, Subcommittee on Section 5 - Methods of analysis, CSA S6, Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC)
- Member, Subcommittee on Section 12 - Barriers and highway accessory Supports, CSA S6, Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC)
- Member, Subcommittee on Section 16 - Fibre Reinforced Concrete, CSA S6, Canadian Highway Bridge Design Code (CHBDC)
- Voting Member, ACI Subcommittee 440-D, Research Development and Applications
- Voting Member of ACI Subcommittee 440-F: FRP Repair-Strengthening
- Voting Member of ACI Subcommittee 440-H: FRP-Reinforced Concrete
- Voting Member of ACI Subcommittee 440-K: FRP-Material Characteristics
- Associate Member of ACI Committee 440: FRP
- Associate Member, ACI-ASCE(SEI) Committee 343: Concrete Bridge Design
- Chair of the International Scientific Committee and the Technical Committee of the International Conference on Short and Medium Span Bridges held in Quebec City in July/August 2018
- Ontario transportation ministry gets cracking on concrete traffic barrier test (article) (external link, opens in new window)
- PL-3 GFRP-reinforced barrier wall crash testing – Ryerson University and TemCorp Industries Inc (video) (external link, opens in new window)
- V-ROD GFRP PL-3 Barrier Crash Test (video) (external link, opens in new window)