I am pleased to say that I have been awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship by UK Research & Innovation.
The fellowship aims to demonstrate how lightweight and sustainable shell structures can be manufactured from reclaimed-fibre composites, accelerating the sustainable use of composite materials. To achieve this, the project will combine state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies and simulation tools across design and process simulation, and link key stakeholders along a new value chain.
Fibre-reinforced composites are used in many engineering applications where lightweight structures are needed. Composites are, however, currently deemed an unsustainable material choice for a circular economy owing to challenges around recycling. Existing recycling processes break the reinforcing fibres into shorter lengths, thereby leading to worse mechanical properties than the pristine material. As a result, recycled composites are currently used for predominantly low-value and non-structural applications.
The vision of my fellowship is to develop high-performance composite structures that are manufactured from recycled carbon fibre. This will be achieved by taking advantage of the unique processing benefits of short-fibre composites; in particular, the ability to form defect-free doubly curved shapes and the ability to easily steer the material along curvilinear trajectories. Using both computational design and automated manufacturing, my goal is to create ultra-lightweight structures that optimally combine geometry and material anisotropy.
Several composite mega-structures are coming to the end of their planned service life. The current recycling approach is to either downcycle the embodied material into lower value applications or to bury the material in landfill. To prevent this terrible waste, new recycling approaches are acutely needed.
By the end of the fellowship, my ambition is to have demonstrated the feasibility of an end-to-end value chain, ranging from material sourcing to a manufactured and tested structure with applications in high-value added industries such as aviation.