Materials Engineering: College of Engineering Centenary Scholarship: Next generation composite materials with enhanced impact properties

Subject areas: Materials Engineering

Start date: April 2019

Project description: Composites are lightweight and durable with high strength, impact and ballistic resistance. These properties make them desirable for protection purposes in lightweight vehicles, aircraft and body armour. High performance composites have been used in applications to protect against various explosive, ballistic and impact scenarios which can lead to different types of threat. Despite their use for protection, impact damage remains a major issue for composite structures. With the rise of nano-materials and additive manufacturing (3D printing), alongside novel composite fabrics being continually developed, new material configurations for improved impact tolerance can be explored and developed. Creative designs can also be developed, prototyped and tested more readily.

The project will involve:

Investigating the use of nanoparticles reinforcement alongside fibres for generating added energy absorption capacity against impact.
Investigating combination of manufacturing methods including the use of 3D printing to produce complex/exotic structures.
Testing and characterisation of materials under various mechanical loads before and after impact.
Identification of main phenomena and parameters governing the formation of impact damages.
Carrying out lab- and full-scale experiments to provide data for direct validation for the model developed by other members of the team.
A concept design will be developed, and field testing will be carried out to demonstrate the streamlined pathway for the design development.
Project supervisors: Dr Feras Korkees, Dr Cris Arnold and Dr Hari Arora

Available resources/facilities: Material Research Centre laboratories- College of Engineering

Eligibility
Candidates should hold an undergraduate degree with a 2.1 or above in Materials Sciences, Engineering or similar. Candidates with background in Composites (Selection, Testing, Manufacture, and Joining), Nano-composites (Selection, Compounding, and Testing) or 3D printing of composite materials are considered.

Candidates are required to have good knowledge of composite materials, especially in the mechanical testing and characterisation of composites and be familiar with laboratory testing procedures. Knowledge of design and analysis (FEA) of composites is desirable.

We would normally expect the academic and English Language requirements to be met by point of application. For details on the University’s English Language entry requirements, please visit – http://www.swansea.ac.uk/admissions/englishlanguagerequirements/

The scholarship covers the full cost of tuition fees and an annual stipend for UK/EU candidates but tuition fees only for international candidates.