Moez LOUATI

Ir. Dr. Moez Louati is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at HKUST. His B.Eng and MPhil degrees in Mechanical Engineering were obtained from the National School of Engineering of Sfax-Tunisia (ENIS). He received his PhD from HKUST in 2016 where he was awarded scholarships for four years as well as the SENG PhD Fellowship Awards for three years, and he received the SENG Overseas Research Award. Dr. Louati has also received the awards from Geneva Innovations Expo 2023 & 2024. He obtained his professional engineering chartership from the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE). Dr. Louati has more than 10 years’ experience in the fields of fluid mechanics of waves, hydraulic transient, and smart urban water systems. During his PhD, Dr. Louati discovered the fundamental connection between waves in pressurized pipe system and Bragg resonance. His PhD thesis was nominated to the Straub Award.

Upon completion of his PhD, Dr. Louati has worked on a theme-based RGC project entitled: ‘Smart Urban Water Supply System’, where he conducted the first experimental proof of time reversal in damped pipe system using high frequency waves. He served as the research tasks coordinator, and the lab-field facilities manager. He has conducted numerous field tests in Hong Kong in collaboration with water supplies and drainage services departments (WSD & DSD) on several DMAs and rising mains systems, and he has designed three water lab facilities. Dr. Louati is also leading and collaborating in other research projects.

Dr. Louati has ample experience in analytical analysis, modeling, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), experimental work, machine learning and HPC. He is currently the chair of the CFD-HPC (high performance computing) committee for the hydraulic transient group. In 2023, he received the tech-ship startup fund and co-founded Hyele Limited, a startup company developing novel technology for pipeline condition assessment.

Locally, Dr. Louati contributes to consultancy and advisory services for the Water Supplies Department (WSD) and Drainage Services Department (DSD). Internationally, he is a member of the International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research (IAHR), where he serves as the chair of the Africa Division, past chair of the working group on Transient Flows, Assistant Editor of the Journal of Hydraulic Research, and a member of the Educational and Professional Development committee. In addition, Dr. Louati has served and still serving as co-organizing chair of international symposiums, conferences and capacity building programs, and as a reviewer for over 10 international journals.

Below is a list of Dr. Louati’s list of projects he was involved in and the students that he had supervised (or is supervising).

Projects

• Cutting-edge Technology for Smart Urban Water Pipeline Systems | ITF-ITC-Technology Start-up Support Scheme for Universities (TSSSU) | From 2024-04-01 To 2025-03-31 | HK$529,166 | (PI)
• Air-water Stratified Flow in a Poorly Ventilated Sewer Main @ FREJLEV Facility of Aalborg University | Horizon 2020 Co-UDlabs (3rd Call) | From 2024-06-01 To 2024-12-31 | €50,000 | (Co-I)
• Smart Pipes for Sustainable Buildings | ITF – ITSP (Seed) | From 2024-06-15 To 2025-12-15 | HK$998,200 | (PI)
• On Damping of Waves in Pressurised Water Pipes and Approaches to Compensate for it | RGC–GRF | From 2024-01-01 To 2026-12-31 | HK$875,693 | (Co-I)
• Testing and Evaluation of Potable Water Supply System at HKIA’s District Metering Area Zone A | Hong Kong Airport Authority (HKAA) | From 2023-10-01 To 2024-03-31 | HK$650,000 | (Co-PI)
• Automated Smart Water Network @ HKUST | Entrepreneur Center Tech-Ship (Startup fund) | From 2023-07-01 To 2024-06-30 | HK$191,666 | (PI)
• Automated and Autonomous Time Reversal-Based Diagnostic System for Water Supply Networks | ITF – ITSP (Mid-stream theme-based) | From 2023-08-22 To 2025-08-21 | HK$4,893,767 | (Co-PI)
• Robotic Arm for Time Reversal Imaging of Water Supply Mains | UGC-Knowledge Transfer (Bridge Gap Fund) | From 2023-07-01 To 2024-06-30 | HK$ 400,000 | (PI)
• Study on Pressure Transient Monitoring System for Rising Mains | Hong Kong Drainage Services Department (HK DSD) | From 2020-02-01 To 2021-12-31 | HK$1,400,000 | (PM)
• Smart Water Network @ HKUST | HKUST-Sustainable Smart Campus (SSC) | From 2020-01-01 To 2022-12-31 | HK$1,276,000 | (PM)
• Pipeline Hydraulics: Resolving the Paradox of Time Reversibility in Damped Transients | RGC – General Research Fund | From 2020-01-01 To 2022-12-31 | HK$748,300 | (Co-I)

Graduated Students

• Dr. Muhammad WAQAR | PhD topic: Time-reversal Technique for Pipeline Defect Detection Using Transient Waves. (Completed in Aug 2022)
• Dr. Georgios GRIGOROPOULOS | PhD topic: Time Reversal of High-Frequency Waves for Defect Detection in Fluid-filled Pipelines. (Completed in Aug 2022)
• Ming Ho YEUNG (Harry) | MPhil topic: Entropy Generation in Water-hammer Flows. (Completed in July 2023)
• Ching Yin LO (Coleman) | MSc topic: Assessment of Leak Detection Using Transient Test in the HKUST Water Lab. (Completed in Jan 2018)
• Ashif RAI | MSc topic: Non-destructive Testing on Shell Structures. (Completed in June 2020)

Students In-progress

• Utban AHMED, PhD student
• Houcem Eddine BEN ARAB, PhD student
• Can XU (Tobi), PhD student
• Yiran CUI (Tom), PhD student
• Jie CUI, PhD student
• Xin MENG (Mencius), PhD student
• Hamdoon IJAZ, PhD student
• Dongyu HAN (Don), MPhil student