Mobility Award winner November 2016

© 2017 EPFL

© 2017 EPFL

Aida Cameselle Molares from the Composite Construction Laboratory CCLAB, is the co-winner of the Mobility Award, autumn 2016

In the scope of my PhD research project I investigate the 2D in-plane delamination of GFRP (glass fibre reinforced polymers) composite laminates under quasi-static loading conditions. The increasing use of fibre-reinforce polymers (FRP) composites in load-bearing structures requires the development of robust tools for the prediction of failure loads and failure modes. As the growth of interface damage in real composite structures is not restricted to one direction but spans all around its contour, the aim of my research is the investigation of realistic crack propagation in GFRP laminates, employed, for instance, in the face sheets of a composite sandwich panel bridge deck.


At the Polytechnic School of the University of Girona (Catalonia, Spain), a fully operating and optimised finite element model to simulate the in-plane 2D damage propagation will be developed in the AMADE (Analysis and Advanced Materials for Structural Design) research group in collaboration with Dr. Renart, Dr. Turón and other members of the team. More than fifteen years of experience in the study of composite materials and structures make AMADE a highly consolidated composite research group. The collaboration with AMADE will constitute a very important contribution to my project and the validation of the developed experimental system for propagation of embedded pre-cracks under opening loads.