Thu, 29 October, 2020
Two TWI experts presented at a webinar hosted by Composites UK and the British Plastics Federation (BPF) on 22 October, 2020.
TWI’s advanced composites expert Chris Worrall, gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Thermoplastic Composites 2020: Current Research.’ Chris presented on the TCTool project, which, through the development of innovative tooling end-effector and industrialisation for welding of thermoplastic components, is developing cutting-edge technology aimed at reducing CO2, gas emissions and noise levels produced by aircraft. The TCTool project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 865131.
If you would like to know more about TCTool, visit the project’s website https://www.tctool.net/ or follow the progress of the activities on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/tctool.
Elsewhere, TWI’s Adhesives, Composites and Sealants Project Leader, Vasiliki Loukodimou, gave a presentation on the topic of ‘Thermoplastic Composites 2020: Current Research.’ Vasiliki delivered a talk regarding the PADICTON project which has the aim of developing validated, rapid distortion prediction models for additive manufacturing of polymeric and composite parts and integrating these directly into design optimisation tools (topology and/or shape optimisation) in order to produce novel part designs that are a best compromise between low weight and manufacturability. The PADICTON project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 864819.
If you want to know more about PADICTON visit the project’s website https://www.padictonproject.eu/ or follow the progress of the activities on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/padicton-project/
About Chris Worrall
Chris Worrall is a Consultant at TWI responsible for providing composites joining, manufacture, processing and testing services to both Members and through public funded projects.
His 35 years of composites expertise covers; composite-metal joining, thermoplastic composite welding, microstructure characterisation, mechanical testing of composite materials (including impact, fracture and toughness), finite element analysis (FEA) of composites, design of composite structures, manufacturing technology for composite materials.
Chris holds a PhD in the field of impact of composite sandwich structures in addition to a BSc in metallurgy and materials science, and spent 10 years working in Japan before returning to the UK and joining TWI. Recently, Chris was part of the SurFlow™ team at TWI that won a Composites UK Innovation award, and is the principal author of the Composites UK ‘Good Practice Guide for Joining of FRPs.’
About Vasiliki Loukodimou
Vasiliki Loukodimou is a Composites Engineer Project Leader in the Adhesives, Composites and Sealants Section at TWI. She has been working on EU funded (CleanSky) and Innovate UK projects, whilst supporting in projects to meet TWI Members’ R&D requirements. Vasiliki’s main interests lie within the areas of composite manufacturing processes, material characterisation and qualification, failure investigation and composite damage modelling.
Vasiliki graduated from the University of Patras, Greece with a Dipl.Ing. in Mechanical Engineering and Aeronautics in 2014. She undertook an Erasmus placement at TWI working in collaboration with the departments of Adhesives, Composites and Sealants, and Numerical Modelling and Optimisation. Vasiliki was sponsored by Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF) to carry out her PhD with Cranfield University, whilst being based at the National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC) at TWI. Her PhD focused on the development of fail-safe designs for the prediction and control of failure in composite pressure vessels avoiding their catastrophic consequences and providing a progressive, gradual manner of failure.