PhD students
Jérémy Chevalier graduated as a material engineer at Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) in 2014. He is currently doing a PhD thesis, started in September 2014, under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Pardoen at UCLouvain and funded by a FRIA grant. His thesis aims at characterizing and modeling carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) mechanical behavior at the scale of their constituents, mainly the pure matrix and the fiber-matrix interfaces. CFRP’s are widely used in structural applications where weight is a critical factor. However, the lack of generic tools to accurately predict their failure must be compensated by heavy experimental campaigns to ensure the safety of the structures, increasing their cost. Hence, the goal of his thesis is to provide a precise understanding of the deformation and failure mechanisms of CFRP’s constituents in order to serve as a basis of a bottom-up approach.
Pauline Delroisse graduated as mechanical engineer at Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL - Belgium) in 2014. She is working under the supervision of Pr. Aude Simar on a PhD thesis related to additive manufacturing which is the continuity of her master thesis. The main objective of this work is to process and optimize new lightweight architectured structures using selective laser melting (SLM). These structures are made of aluminium alloy (AlSi10Mg) and characterized in terms of microstructure (influence of the process parameters, porosity,…) and mechanical properties (impact resistance, tensile and compressive behaviors). Her work is in support of the increasing interest of the aeronautical and aerospatial industries in this new manufacturing technology.
Senior scientists / Postdoctoral researchers
Pierre Bollen, Dr, Senior scientist - Composites, Hybrids, coatings
Pierre Bollen graduated as engineer in chemistry and materials science at Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium) in 2010. In 2015, he obtained at UCL his PhD thesis entitled hierarchical hybrid materials combining wideband electromagnetic absorption and mechanical performance, funded by a FRIA grant. After working one year as a support engineer in the field of extended finite element modeling, he came back at the UCL as a senior researcher involved in applied research projects in collaboration with industry. He is currently dealing with erosion coating on CFRP as well as thermal and electromagnetic management in electrical power converter.
Vincent Destoop, Dr, Senior scientist - Mechanics of composites and adhesive bonding
Vincent Destoop made his PhD on the adhesion of tooth-filling materials to the dentine. He’s now working on composite materials to replace metals in aircraft applications. He takes part to projects studying the mechanical behavior of composite materials (mainly polymer matrix reinforced with long fibers) which are new candidate materials for modern planes. His investigations focus on their bulk, cracking, impact and adhesion properties.
Lipeng Ding, Dr, Postdoctoral researcher
Lipeng Ding obtained his PhD degree (2017) at Chongqing University, P.P. China. His PhD work mainly addressed the precipitation hardening of Al-Mg-Si-Cu alloys by aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy (TEM). He is now working as a post-doc fellow with Profs. H. Idrissi, A. Simar, P. Jacques in IMAP, Université catholique de Louvain and Prof. Nick Schryvers in EMAT, University of Antwerp. His research mainly focuses on unraveling defects behaviour of novel metallic and metallic-based materials, such as high-entropy alloys, Ti-Mo alloys and aluminium based alloys using quantitative advanced TEM techniques such as aberration corrected TEM, orientation and nanostrain mapping in TEM and in-situ TEM nanomechanical testing.
Catherine Doneux, Senior scientist - Mechanics of composites
Catherine Doneux graduated as Civil Engineer at University of Liege in 1992. She began her career with a first experience on the assessment of an existing prestressed railway bridge. Thanks to several FNRS grants, she obtained a PhD degree in the domain of steel-concrete composite structures under seismic action in 2002 and was involved in several researches on paraseismic design at ULg until 2005. After some career break, she joined UCL in December 2008 to take part to the development of new composite activities related to various applied research projects in collaboration with the industry (aeronautics) Her main fields of expertise are the mechanical characterization of composite materials by mechanical testing, the quality control of the standardised tests and the development of new tests. She has also some experience in fatigue testing, damage characterization and fracture mechanics. She is currently working on the preforming of composite thermoset prepreg fabrics.
Audrey Favache, Dr, Senior scientist - Tribology
Audrey Favache obtained a PhD degree in the domain of process control in 2009 at Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium), after having graduated there as chemical engineer in 2005. Since then, she is working as a "senior" researcher on several applied research projects in collaboration with the industry in the domain of mechanics of materials. More particularly, she is interested in the link between the mechanical properties of the individual components of a complex system and the global mechanical response of this system. She applied this approach to the framework of tribology and contact mechanics for understanding the scratch resistance of coatings and multilayered systems. Her work covers both experimental aspects and finite element simulations.
Sophie Ryelandt, Senior scientist
Sophie Ryelandt graduated as a physical engineer at Université catholique de Louvain in 1991. After having worked for six years at the R&D center of the Spadel company, she came back at UCL as a senior scientist. She is involved in various applied research projects in collaboration with the industry. Her research domains are dealing with material science, metallic composites, multilayered materials and coatings, additive manufacturing of metals, nanomechanical and mechanical testing and the link between microstructure and mechanical properties.
Olivier Poncelet, Dr, Senior scientist
Thaneshan Sapanathan, Dr, Senior scientist
Thaneshan SAPANATHAN completed a mechanical engineering degree and a PhD at Monash University (Australia) in 2010 and 2014, respectively. His thesis was entitled “Fabrication of axi-symmetric hybrid materials using combination of shear and pressure”. During his PhD, he worked on architectured hybrid materials fabrication using severe plastic deformation (SPD) processes. Two novel axi-symmetric SPD techniques were investigated to fabricate hybrid materials with concurrent grain refinements. After that, he started a research project at University of Technology of Compiègne (France) in which he investigated the weldability window for similar and dissimilar material combinations using numerical simulations for magnetic pulse welding. He also studied the interfacial phenomena, behavior of material under high strain rate deformation, modeling and simulation of the magnetic pulse welding/forming. Currently, he is working as a postdoctoral research fellow at UCL on the topic of characterizations of aluminium to steel welds made by friction stir welds and friction melt bonding. In particular, he will study the residual stresses and effect of intermetallic distribution on the mechanical properties of these welds.
Alumni
Norberto Jimenez Mena graduated as a mechanical engineer at the University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain, in 2013. He started his PhD thesis in September 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Aude Simar and Prof. Pascal Jacques and funded by a FRIA grant. His thesis aims at understanding and optimizing dissimilar welds of aluminium to steel by means of a novel Friction Melt Bonding (FMB) process. Currently, the transport industry lacks of reliable methods to join these two materials due to their metallurgical and physical incompatibilities. In FMB, developed and patented at the UCL, the bonding is formed by a reaction of liquid aluminium and solid steel to form a continuous intermetallic layer. The strength of the weld is mainly determined by the composition and shape of the intermetallic and the presence of solidification defects. The goal is to identify the role of the thermomechanical cycles in the intermetallic and defect formation to find an optimum that maximises the strength using finite element modelling, diffusion kinetics calculations, specific toughness testing.
Céline Vlémincq
Céline Vlémincq graduated as a chemical and materials engineer at Université catholique de Louvain in 2016. She started in September 2016 a PhD thesis in collaboration with Solvay and under the joint supervision of Prof. Thomas Pardoen and Prof. Bernard Nysten from UCL and Dr. Ezio Gandin from Solvay. The subject of her PhD is about characterization and modeling of surface mechanical properties at the micro-nanometer scale for the study of polymer behavior in contact with industrial fluids. The main objective is to exploit the potential of the local characterization of mechanical properties by nanoindentation and AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) to quantify the impact of fluids on the mechanical properties of polymer materials.