Research work in the fields of Advanced Materials and Impact Dynamics is carried out in the following areas

ADVANCED MATERIALS

Advanced composite materials and structures

Various aspects and applications of advanced composite materials in the aerospace, civil infrastructure, oil and gas, high-end machines, antennas and marine industries are investigated by the Advanced Composite Research Unit (ACRU) members. The research topics and projects include development of new structural design and analysis methods, experimental characterisation of new materials, studies of the structural performance and manufacturing effects. Current research topics include Composite structural design and optimisation; Composite manufacture; Fracture and fatigue; Computational mechanics (nonlinear numerical, thermal and thermal-mechanical, progressive damage and buckling analyses); Mechanical characterisation and experimental diagnostics of polymer matrix composites and structures; Impact testing and modelling; Composite sandwich panels; Composite lattice structures. The Unit is chaired by Professor Evgeny Morozov. More information can be found at the Unit’s webpage.

Novel materials for photonics, materials for nano-antennas, and new high temperature ceramics

Research group led by Dr Haroldo Hattori is working on optical devices having dimensions ranging from hundreds of nanometres to few micrometres. This involves development of new nano-antennas that can handle high energy densities, novel saturable absorbers for Q-switched fibre lasers based on novel nano-materials (e.g. graphene oxide, dichalcogenides, high temperature borides, oxides and nitrides) and the study of new high temperature ceramics that can handle very high power laser blasts. In summary, we are looking for materials and devices that work under harsh conditions.

IMPACT DYNAMICS

Impact Dynamics is concerned with the study of collisions, whether they be from dropping a mobile phone onto a hard surface, crashing a car into a brick wall, a bullet striking an armour plate or even a meteorite crashing to earth. The Impact Dynamics Research Group is led by Professor Paul Hazell.

The Impact Dynamics Research Group investigates how materials and structures behave under dynamic loading conditions. We are able to test materials over a wide spectrum of strain rates ranging from 10^-3 to 10⁷ s^-1. An advanced array of loading methods, visualisation techniques and data-capturing diagnostics are available for full material characterization

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