Advanced Materials and Structures
ISI has initiated activity in the area of advanced materials and structures with the support of collaborative faculty members of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics. The collaborating faculty of the group have accumulated significant expertise through the participation in numerous national and international competitive research programs in the fields of materials, structural analysis and technology development. The group brings strong experience in mechanical testing, mechanical behaviour of materials, quality certification and assurance, aircraft structural analysis and design, testing of structural components in service conditions, original products development and certification, as well as, specialized production engineering technologies elaboration and application.
Development of numerical tools
Combining ISI’s expertise in industrial computational technologies with the activities and experience of the group members, research plans include the following directions:
- Virtual prototyping and virtual testing methodologies for replacing the actual prototyping and testing.
- Structural modelling and simulation of structures under real service conditions, such as static, dynamic and impact/crash conditions
- Development of advanced/integrated simulation methods for the modern manufacturing technologies, such as AM, LBF, LBW, FSW etc.
- Simulation-driven design tools based on multi-scale modeling for nano-enabled multifunctional materials and bio-composites
Importantly, the ISI group has already a funded project in this area, project MOTIVATE have been initiated in June 2018.
Novel concepts in advanced materials and structures
The group will conduct research in the directions of
- Advanced structural concepts and their applicability in real structures (e.g. structural integrity of integral structure)
- Application of surface treatments for fatigue and corrosion behaviour improvement
- Testing of novel materials and composite materials for weight reduction and/or special functionality, such as, crashworthiness, aircraft accident minimization and increased efficiency.
Maintenance and repair
- Intelligent maintenance and repair methodologies, which will increase the duration of maintenance free time without reducing safety, as well as will increase repair efficiency.
- Innovative methods for structural or corrosion damage detection in aircraft structures based on structural health monitoring. Methods to relate the input of the intelligent embedded sensors in the structure, engine or systems and assess from them the structural health monitoring.
- Ageing of new structural concepts e.g. integral structures, full composite structures and structures manufactured by novel materials requires investigation.
The group is also investigating plans for research work in the topics of (a) Nano sciences, nano technologies and nanostructures, (b) Analysis of composite materials for lightweight design, (c) Optimisation of metallic and composite structural components, and (d) Cost versus quality estimation of composite components.