VUB Mechanics of Materials and Constructions (MeMC)

Last week, we had the great honour and pleasure to host Prof. Stepan Lomov, Emeritus Professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), in our department. Prof. Lomov presented very interesting research on 'Multi-instrument damage investigation of polymer composites' with the use of diverse experimental techniques. His lecture definitely inspired us and made clear how important experimental mechanics is for reliable analysis and development of composite materials. Thank you Prof. Lomov!

🔔 Recently, our PhD candidate Ramak H. Abadi completed a research visit at the ThermoPlastic composites Research Center (TPRC) in Enschede, the Netherlands. During this visit, Ramak worked on advancing research into the formability characterization of natural fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites, utilizing the TPRC’s state-of-the-art facilities and collaborating with leading experts in the field. This visit provided valuable insights for Ramak’s ongoing research and further strengthened the collaboration between our department and TPRC. We would like to extend our special thanks to Prof. Remko Akkerman, Dr. Ulrich Sachs, Dr. Sebastiaan Wijskamp, and the entire TPRC team for their invaluable guidance and support. Their expertise and contributions were instrumental in making this visit a highly productive and inspiring experience. We are eager to see how this research evolves and look forward to future collaborations with TPRC! ✔ A big thanks to Research Foundation Flanders - FWO for funding this research visit.

Interested in thermoforming of composite materials? Check out our latest publication, titled “Temperature and rate dependent shear characterization and modeling of spread-tow woven Flax/PP composite laminates”, which has been published in Composites Part B Engineering. This study is part of Ramak H. Abadi's PhD research and investigates the effect of in-plane shear characteristics on the forming behavior of Flax/PP thermoplastic composite laminates during the thermoforming process, specifically focusing on temperature and displacement rate effects. This research, which presents experimental and numerical approaches for characterizing thermoplastic composites at elevated temperatures, contributes to optimizing the stamp-forming process for sustainable composites. By advancing our understanding of this area, we aim to support the application of eco-friendly composite materials in industries to reduce their environmental footprint. For those interested, the paper is accessible for free over the next 50 days via the link below: https://lnkd.in/e5zAwJP4

Who said the conferences season is over? 🌎 💼 Between 6 and 10 of October, our colleague Artemis Kalteremidou had the chance to attend the 11th International Conference on Structural Analysis of Advanced Materials (ICSAAM 11), which was held at a beautiful location in Protaras, Cyprus 🌞. She delivered a plenary lecture on “Acoustic emission in polymer composites: early damage detection for prediction of the structural performance". Many thanks to the organizers and especially to Vasileios (Vassilis) Drakonakis and the whole team of AmaDema - Advanced Materials Design & Manufacturing Ltd for the great organization! Back in September, Artemis also participated in the 43rd Solid Mechanics Conference (SolMech 43) that was organized in picturesque Wrocław in Poland, where she gave a presentation focused on our team's research on polymer composites. Many thanks to Polish Academy of Sciences for the fruitful conference.

With great pleasure we announce that MEMC Professor Dimitris Aggelis is included in the Stanford University list of top 2% scientists, based on publications and citations both for the year 2023 as well as for the career-long impact, according to Elsevier Data Repository: https://lnkd.in/gp2fggdH Great news also for the engineering faculty, and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) as a whole since more than 90 of VUB researchers are included in the prestigious list. Congratulations and keep up the good work!

Save the date! Join us for an unforgettable alumni event!

Interested in fracture mechanics of thick adhesive joints? Then read the latest publication of our research group in the Composites Part B: Engineering journal from Elsevier, entitled ''An experimental and analytical study of mode I fracture and crack kinking in thick adhesive joints", available with open-access here: https://lnkd.in/eT8syRA7. The paper is part of the PhD research of Ali Shivaie Kojouri and investigates the fracture behaviour of thick adhesive joints manufactured with composite adherends and bonded with an epoxy-based structural adhesive common to the wind turbine industry. Different data reduction methods, T-stress analyses and crack kinking monitoring are combined towards a better understanding of the fracture response of thick adhesive joints. The publication is a result of our collaboration with Ghent University and EPFL under the common project "Combined numerical and experimental approach for the development, testing and analysis of thick adhesive joints in large wind turbine blades" funded by the Research Foundation Flanders - FWO (G031020 N) and the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF (200021E_18944/1). Danny VanHemelrijck, Wim Van Paepegem, Anastasios P. Vassilopoulos, Veronique Michaud, Artemis Kalteremidou, Akash Sharma, Ali Shivaie Kojouri, Javane Karami, jialiang fan

Great representation of our department at the 21st European Conference on Composite Materials (ECCM21), which was organized in Nantes, France from the 2nd to the 5th of July. We had the chance to attend numerous high-quality scientific presentations in diverse innovative topics from modeling advancements to experimental approaches and novel applications, e.g. in the hydrogen sector. Our department participated with 6 presentations and 1 poster. ✔ Ramak H. Abadi: Numerical modeling of the in-plane shear behavior of woven thermoplastic composites at high temperature Topic: Multiscale modeling ✔ Ahmad Shawki Charkieh: Mechanical performance of 3D printed fibre-reinforced triply periodic minimal surfaces structures Topic: Short & long fibre composites ✔ Artemis Kalteremidou: Acoustic emission for differentiation between cross-ply composite laminates and identification of dominant stress states Topic: Acoustic Emission & ultrasonic method ✔ Javane Karami: An experimental study on mode II delamination in a unidirectional thermoplastic composite using acoustic emission Topic: Acoustic Emission & ultrasonic method ✔ Ali Shivaie Kojouri: Experimental evaluation of the T-stress impact on the crack trajectory in thick adhesive joints under mode I loading Topic: Fracture and damage ✔ Christos Nikolaou: Analytical and numerical modeling of thermal strains of composites Topic: Multiscale modeling ✔ Efstratios Polyzos: Analytical and numerical modeling of the effective specific heat of composites Topic: Multiscale modeling The proceedings of the conference can be found here: https://lnkd.in/e_wAVkZ4 We are also very happy that Artemis Kalteremidou was elected as member of the Council of the European Society of Composite Materials for the 2024-2028 term. Of course, we also had some fun… Looking forward to the next edition of the conference, ECCM22, in Oslo, Norway!

Last week we were very happy to be present at the official roll-out of Zephyr, this year's formula car manufactured by the VUB Racing team! Zephyr is the highlight of countless hours of hard work, innovation, and dedication from the students of this incredible team. Our department was involved in the genesis of this impressive car through modelling and testing of natural composites reinforced with flax fibers. This was done in the framework of the Bachelor thesis supervision of two Industrial Engineering students, who worked on the numerical development and the experimental characterization of the composite-made wings of the car. Congratulations to Milan and Xander as well as to the whole team for the great result. Looking forward to future collaborations!