SET Awards Accolade for Loughborough Student September 2009
Chris Harvey, a recent graduate of the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University, was announced as winner of the prestigious Airbus Award for “Best Aeronautical Engineering Student” at the 2009 SET Awards, held in London last night.
Chris was one of three students in the UK short-listed for the Award. All candidates were interviewed at the Royal Aeronautical Society Headquarters by a panel of experts before giving a presentation about their project.
Chris’ project focused on understanding and predicting the behaviour of composite laminates as they become progressively damaged. Fibre-reinforced composite laminates are increasingly used in high-performance structural applications due to their superiority over conventional metallic materials. Their use offers many advantages, including weight-savings of up to 40%, high strength and stiffness. However for the aerospace industry full weight-savings are not achievable due to the difficulty in accurately predicting the onset of damage and the implications in terms of structural performance.
One of the key outputs of Chris’ research project was the development of a suite of analysis software that can simulate the behaviour of damaged composite laminates.
Chris’ project supervisor, Dr Simon Wang accompanied him to the Awards Ceremony.
“This Award represents a huge achievement and clearly recognises the fact that Chris’ research project has led to some significant discoveries of immediate important to the aerospace industry.”
Of his success, Chris says: “I’m delighted to have received this award and my thanks go to the Department and in particular my supervisor, Dr. Simon Wang, for their continued support. The project findings are now being reported within international journals and at conferences which is a fantastic result.”
Chris Harvey receiving his award from Stuart Reid, Airbus chief engineer of the Airbus A320 programme.
Photography courtesy of Cyril Bruneau