Saiful Amin-BUET

Email: samin@ce.buet.ac.bd
PABX No: 5155 (Off)
Room No: 507
Personal web page

Dr. A.F.M. Saiful Amin

Professor
DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET)

Specialization:

  • Structural and bridge engineering
  • Mechanics of materials and constitutive modelling of rubber
  • Fibre-reinforced polymer composites and advanced concrete
  • Structural health monitoring and disaster-resilient infrastructure
  • Engineering education, accreditation and quality assurance

Biography

Prof. Dr. A.F.M. Saiful Amin has served on the faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering, BUET, since 1996, following undergraduate study in the same department from 1991 to 1996. His work joins constitutive modelling of rubber and fibre-reinforced composites with the design review, rehabilitation, and health monitoring of major bridges and with the reform of engineering-education accreditation.

From 1998 to 2007 he carried out fundamental research on high-damping rubber for seismic isolation in Japan, Bangladesh and Germany. The resulting hyperelasticity and nonlinear viscosity models, published in Mechanics of Materials (2002) and the International Journal of Plasticity (2006), were applied in the construction of the second Kanchpur–Meghna–Gumti bridges on the Dhaka–Chittagong highway, the first use of high-damping rubber seismic isolation on Bangladesh’s highway bridges.

He led the structural health monitoring campaign on the 4.8 km Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge (2012–2015) and serves as team leader of the design review team for the Padma Bridge Rail Link. He was team leader for the rehabilitation of the Kalurghat Rail Bridge to higher axle loads (2022) and for the subsequent walkway widening (2023). A seven-year atmospheric exposure program with JFE Steel Corporation, Japan, supported the use of unpainted weathering steel on the Jamuna Railway Bridge.

As Focal Person at BUET for the SATREPS program “Technical Development to Upgrade Structural Integrity of Buildings in Densely Populated Urban Areas and its Strategic Implementation toward Resilient Cities in Bangladesh” (1 April 2016 to 31 July 2022), funded by JICA and JST with the Housing and Building Research Institute, he contributed to national seismic-retrofit guidance for urban buildings.

Consultancy assignments for government and public-sector clients are undertaken through the Bureau of Research, Testing and Consultation (BRTC) of BUET.

Present positions

  • Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
  • Part-time Lecturer, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Japan, delivering Special Lecture on Infrastructure III(E): Bridge Engineering (October 2024 to March 2027)
  • Chair, Bangladesh National Group, International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE)
  • Director, American Concrete Institute (ACI) Bangladesh Chapter (2026)
  • Part-time Faculty, Islamic University of Technology (IUT), an organ of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Gazipur
  • Regional Representative for Bangladesh, Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), United Kingdom
  • Member, National Advisory Team for renovation, widening, and strengthening of the Jamuna (Bangabandhu) Multipurpose Bridge deck, Bangladesh Bridge Authority (from February 2026)
  • Team Leader, Design Review Team, Padma Bridge Rail Link Project, on behalf of BUET (from 2018)

 

Former positions

  • Director, BUET-Japan Institute of Disaster Prevention and Urban Safety (BUET-JIDPUS), until 6 November 2024. During this tenure the Institute launched the M.Sc. Engg. (DRR), M. Engg. (DRR) and M.Sc. (DRR) programs (April 2023).
  • Chairman, Vice-Chairman, and Acting Chairman, and Member-Secretary, Board of Accreditation for Engineering and Technical Education (BAETE), Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (Member-Secretary, 9 December 2015 to 21 March 2021; Vice-Chairman and Acting Chairman, April 2021 to 22 June 2023; Chairman, 22 June 2023 to 10 March 2025). Bangladesh was admitted as the 24th full signatory of the Washington Accord on 12 June 2024 during the chairmanship. Signatory list, https://www.internationalengineeringalliance.org/accords/washington-accord#list-of-signatories

 

Education

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Saitama University, Japan, 2001
  • Master of Science in Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, 1998
  • Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering with Honours, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, 1996 (first position; Prime Minister’s Gold Medal)

Medium of instruction throughout undergraduate study, postgraduate study and teaching at BUET: English.

 

Teaching

Undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in the Department of Civil Engineering, BUET, continuing established departmental teaching lines:

  • CE 411 Analysis of Statically Indeterminate Structures (undergraduate). Successor to the teaching line of the late National Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury.
  • CE 419 Finite Element Method (undergraduate). Continuation of the teaching line of Professor Sohrabuddin Ahmad.
  • CE 6109 Finite Element Method (postgraduate). Continuation of the teaching line of Professor Sohrabuddin Ahmad.

Faculty Advisor, ACI FRP Composites Competition 2026, Rosemont, Chicago. The BUET student team placed 4th of 43.

Research Interest

Professor Amin’s research is concerned with keeping existing infrastructure in service: understanding how materials behave, measuring how structures perform, and turning both into decisions on real bridges and buildings in Bangladesh. The themes below are listed in the order in which they entered his work.

  • Mechanics of rubber for seismic isolation. Doctoral and postdoctoral research in Japan and Germany (1998 to 2007) produced hyperelasticity and rate-dependent viscosity models for natural and high-damping rubber, later extended to the finite-element analysis and design of high-damping rubber bearings. The models are used internationally and were applied in the seismic isolation bearings of the second Kanchpur, Meghna and Gumti bridges.
  • Bridge assessment, rehabilitation, and health monitoring. Structural health monitoring and CFRP deck retrofit of the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge; vibration-based scour estimation on the Meghna Bridge; rehabilitation of the Kalurghat Rail Bridge for higher axle loads and a widened walkway; design review of the Padma Bridge Rail Link. Current interest: interpretation of monitoring data and load rating of aging bridges.
  • Durability of bridge steel. A multi-year atmospheric exposure program with JFE Steel Corporation, Japan, characterized corrosion of weathering steel across Bangladesh’s climatic zones and supported its unpainted use on the Jamuna Railway Bridge.
  • Fibre-reinforced polymer composites and concrete. FRP confinement and strengthening of reinforced concrete, including brick aggregate and low-strength concrete; non-destructive screening and strength correlation for low-strength concrete; residual cementing property of recycled aggregates; and local standard sand and mineral by-products in concrete. The first FRP retrofits of commercial buildings in Bangladesh (2011 to 2012) and the country’s first multi-story building reinforced with GFRP bars grew from this work.
  • Disaster risk reduction for buildings. Seismic evaluation and retrofit guidance for existing reinforced concrete buildings under the Japan-Bangladesh SATREPS program and postgraduate education in disaster risk reduction at BUET-JIDPUS.
  • Data-driven methods. Machine learning for earthquake early warning, metro evacuation planning, and urban heat mitigation, with colleagues in computer science and urban planning.
  • Engineering education and accreditation. Outcome-based curricula and internationally benchmarked accreditation, drawing on the Washington Accord process for Bangladesh.

International academic collaboration

  • Part-time Lecturer, Saitama University, Japan (October 2024 to March 2027), following visiting academic collaboration with Saitama University and the University of Tokyo since 2001
  • Contributor to the BUET–Saitama University academic and student exchange agreement and its renewals in 2011, 2016, 2021 and 2026
  • Georg Forster Research Fellow, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany, 2007
  • DAAD Fellow, Germany, 2004

 

Recognition

Selected Publications

 

Links to Profiles, Publications and Citations

Google Scholar:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0dTzhYgAAAAJ&hl=en

ResearchGate:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Afms-Amin

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/a-f-m-saiful-amin-109744b9/?originalSubdomain=bd

 

  1. Amin, A. F. M. S. (2026). In Memory of Prof. Yozo Fujino: Building Bridges Beyond Structures. Structural Engineering International, 36(3), 579-581. https://doi.org/10.1080/10168664.2026.2694281
  2. Murshed, R. U., Noshin, K., Zakaria, M. A., Uddin, M. F., Amin, A. F. M. S., and Ali, M. E. (2024). Real-time seismic intensity prediction using self-supervised contrastive GNN for earthquake early warning. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 62, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2024.3373643
  3. Mehrin, M., Khan, M. S., Tasnim, M., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (2025). Investigation of cooling effects of lakes during heatwaves: a case study of Dhaka City. Water and Environment Journal, 39(3), 338-352. https://doi.org/10.1111/wej.12979
  4. Hoque, I. L., Aziz, S., Mallick, J. R., Nayeem, M. A., Maisha, T.-E.-H., Hossain, F. M. Z., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (2023). Response analysis of a ballasted rail track constructed on soft soil by 3D modeling. Advances in Civil Engineering, 2023, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/4290824
  5. Matsukawa, K., Amin, A. F. M. S., and Nakano, Y. (2023). Effects of the tensile strength and elastic modulus of low-strength brick aggregate concrete on the ultimate shear strength of short reinforced concrete columns. Structural Concrete, 24(1), 972-984. https://doi.org/10.1002/suco.202100834
  6. Maliha, M., Nishiwaki, T., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (2022). Screening method for very-low-strength concrete. ACI Materials Journal, 119(6). https://doi.org/10.14359/51737190
  7. Amin, A. F. M. S. (2021). Structure to bridge creation hubs during the pandemic. Structural Engineering International, 31(1), 5. https://doi.org/10.1080/10168664.2021.1863652
  8. Choudhury, M. S. I., Matsumoto, Y., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (2018). Scour depth estimation in a balanced cantilever bridge with deteriorated central hinges based on natural frequencies: field measurements, methodology for estimation and verification. Journal of Civil Structural Health Monitoring, 8(4), 617-634. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13349-018-0300-9
  9. Amin, A. F. M. S., Hasnat, A., Khan, A. H., and Ashiquzzaman, M. (2016). Residual cementing property in recycled fines and coarse aggregates: occurrence and quantification. Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering, 28(4), art. 04015174. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)MT.1943-5533.0001472
  10. Choudhury, M. S. I., Amin, A. F. M. S., Islam, M. M., and Hasnat, A. (2016). Effect of confining pressure distribution on the dilation behavior in FRP-confined plain concrete columns using stone, brick and recycled aggregates. Construction and Building Materials, 102, 541-551. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.11.003
  11. Hasnat, A., Islam, M. M., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (2016). Enhancing the debonding strain limit for CFRP-strengthened RC beams using U-clamps: identification of design parameters. Journal of Composites for Construction, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CC.1943-5614.0000599
  12. Islam, M. M., Choudhury, M. S. I., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (2016). Dilation effects in FRP-confined square concrete columns using stone, brick, and recycled coarse aggregates. Journal of Composites for Construction, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CC.1943-5614.0000574
  13. Hossain, M., Amin, A. F. M. S., and Kabir, M. N. (2015). Eight-chain and full-network models and their modified versions for rubber hyperelasticity: a comparative study. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Materials, 24(1-2), 11-24. https://doi.org/10.1515/jmbm-2015-0002
  14. Nguyen, D. A., Dang, J., Okui, Y., Amin, A. F. M. S., Okada, S., and Imai, T. (2015). An improved rheology model for the description of the rate-dependent cyclic behavior of high damping rubber bearings. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 77, 416-431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2015.06.001
  15. Amin, A. F. M. S., Bhuiyan, A. R., Hossain, T., and Okui, Y. (2015). Nonlinear viscosity law in finite-element analysis of high damping rubber bearings and expansion joints. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 141(6), art. 04014169. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000888
  16. Razzaq, M. K., Okui, Y., Bhuiyan, A. R., Amin, A. F. M. S., Mitamura, H., and Imai, T. (2012). Application of rheology modeling to natural rubber and lead rubber bearings: a simplified model and low temperature behavior. Structural Engineering/Earthquake Engineering, JSCE, 29(2), 40s-55s. https://doi.org/10.2208/jsceseee.29.40s
  17. Hossain, M. F., Molla, M. A. I., Masum, S. M., Rana, A. A., Amin, A. F. M. S., Chowdhury, R. S., Sultana, S., and Karim, M. M. (2012). Chemical and sedimentological characterization of Moulvibazar silica deposit of Bangladesh as standard sand. IJBAS-IJENS, 12(6), 170-176.
  18. Amin, A. F. M. S., Haque, M. M., Siddiqi, M. Z. R., Rahman, M. A., Islam, M. S., and Alam, M. K. (2012). Use of selected silica deposits of Bangladesh as standard sand in testing compressive strength of hydraulic cement mortars: a proposal for strength correlation. Journal of Civil Engineering, Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, 40(2), 181-202.
  19. Amin, A. F. M. S., Lion, A., and Höfer, P. (2010). Effect of temperature history on the mechanical behaviour of a filler-reinforced NR/BR blend: literature review and critical experiments. ZAMM – Zeitschrift für Angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik, 90(5), 347-369. https://doi.org/10.1002/zamm.200900365
  20. Amin, A. F. M. S., Lion, A., Sekita, S., and Okui, Y. (2006). Nonlinear dependence of viscosity in modeling the rate-dependent response of natural and high damping rubbers in compression and shear: experimental identification and numerical verification. International Journal of Plasticity, 22(9), 1610-1657. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2005.09.005
  21. Amin, A. F. M. S., Wiraguna, S. I., Bhuiyan, A. R., and Okui, Y. (2006). Hyperelasticity model for finite element analysis of natural and high damping rubbers in compression and shear. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 132(1), 54-64. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2006)132:1(54)
  22. Amin, A. F. M. S., Alam, M. S., and Okui, Y. (2003). Measurement of lateral deformation in natural and high damping rubbers in large deformation uniaxial tests. Journal of Testing and Evaluation, ASTM, 31(6), 524-532. https://doi.org/10.1520/JTE12381J
  23. Amin, A. F. M. S., Alam, M. S., and Okui, Y. (2002). An improved hyperelasticity relation in modeling viscoelasticity response of natural and high damping rubbers in compression: experiments, parameter identification and numerical verification. Mechanics of Materials, 34(2), 75-95. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-6636(01)00102-8
  24. Amin, A. F. M. S., Alam, M. S., and Okui, Y. (2001). Nonlinear viscoelastic response of elastomers: experiments, parameter identification and numerical simulation. Journal of Structural Engineering, JSCE, 47A, 181-192.
  25. Ahmad, S., and Amin, A. F. M. S. (1998). Effect of curing conditions on compressive strength of brick aggregate concrete. Journal of Civil Engineering, Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, CE26(1), 37-49.

 

Independent reviews and studies citing the rubber constitutive models

Bechir, Chevalier, Chaouche and Boufala, European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 25 (2006) 110-124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euromechsol.2005.03.005

Lv, Dudek, Cao, Balamurali, Gosline and Li, Nature 465 (2010) 69-73; the 2006 model is reference 33. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09024

Xiang, Zhong, Rudykh, Zhou, Qu and Yang, ASME Journal of Applied Mechanics 87 (2020) 110801; review with a named subsection “Model of Amin et al.”. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4047776

Dal, Açıkgöz and Badienia, ASME Applied Mechanics Reviews 73 (2021) 020802; benchmark of 44 hyperelastic models, assessing the “Amin Model”. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4050978

He, Zhang, Zhang, Chen, Zhang and Li, Nano Materials Science 4 (2022) 64-82; comparative study of 85 hyperelastic models. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoms.2021.07.003

Wang and others, Nature Materials 24 (2025) 1074-1081; the 2002 paper is reference 25. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-025-02130-z

Wu and others, Nature Communications 16 (2025) 11183; the 2002 paper is reference 72. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-66156-2