Abstract
The sustainable use of materials relies on three core elements reduce, reuse, and recycle. As mechanical engineers we can play an extremely important role for a sustainable future by addressing the reduce and reuse elements. One of the keyways in which this can be done is by changing our design philosophy from no defect and elastic limit design to a damage tolerant and fracture mechanics-based approach. When it comes to composites materials and hybrid structures, the damage tolerant design approach is difficult to implement. This is because it requires tools that can accurately and computationally efficiently model the multiscale progressive damage growth in the multiphase material systems. Modelling of damage and failure in composites present a set of unique challenges. The first challenge is to model the reinforcement architecture (or micro-structure) realistically, the second is to account for stochastic variation of properties that arise due to random defects produced during manufacturing, the third is to track the damage propagation across various scales and in various phases using appropriate damage laws. As the models become more sophisticated, they become computationally expensive as well as difficult to implement in practice – especially for large components like aircraft wings or wind turbine blades. Thus, there is a need to develop tools and methods that are a) simple to implement, b) can be solved computationally efficiently, and c) be sufficiently accurate to provide reliable life estimates which are not overly conservative. Such tools will allow us to keep the components in-service for much longer by reducing design conservativeness on one hand and on other these allow us to validate the repair strategies, again allowing us to keep the assets functioning for longer and thus reducing the pressures on landfills.
Thus, over the past many years we have been focusing on proposing and validating novel methodologies that allow us to tackle these challenges head-on and, in this talk, I will discuss some of our recent contributions in this area and their impact.
Bio
Dr. Choudhry is an experienced academic, a Fellow of Higher education Academy (FHEA), UK, Professional Member of Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM, UK), and certified Professional Engineer. He holds a PhD (doctorate) in Mechanical Engineering with specialisation in damage modelling of composite materials from the University of Manchester, UK.
He has worked on several high-profile research projects including the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council) and GKN composites funded ADAPT (Analysis and Design for Accelerated Production and Tailoring of Composites) research project at the University of Bath, Mitsubishi Heavy Industry funded research in failure of composites at the University of Cambridge and Ministry of Defence funded research project ‘Armor on Demand’ at the University of Manchester, UK.
He has won several grants worth around half a million dollars ($500,000) and has over 72 publications including high-impact journals, international conferences, and edited books. His core area of research is damage mechanics of composites, and he is passionate about design philosophies that lead to sustainable use of materials. In recent years he has shifted his attention to interdisciplinary research in multifunctional structural battery materials and is currently highly active in this area.
In terms of teaching, he has around 13 years of teaching experience in the areas of mechanical and materials engineering and follows a problem-based pedagogy. He is a strong advocate of student-centred experiential learning and is known for presenting complex ideas in simple terms.