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At the recent 23^rd International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM23) held in Belfast, 30th July to 4th August 2023, the CerTest team organised a very successful workshop and panel session themed, ‘Modernising Routes to Compliance with Composite Regulations:  A Journey towards Virtual Testing and Digital Twinning’. The event, listed as an Industrial Needs Session in the ICCM23 programme, took place on 1st August 2023.

The event followed up on similar successful sessions on modernising composites regulations that were held at the ICCM21 in Xi’an in 2017, and the ICCM22 in Melbourne 2019.

The overarching aim was to define a cross-sector view on the need for modernisation of routes to demonstrate compliance with composites regulations. This includes discussion of viable routes forward with respect to lessening the burden of meeting regulations, including reducing cost and time to market whilst also enabling improved performance. The workshop/panel sessions addressed this through a selection of invited talks covering academia (CerTest representatives), regulators (EASA – European Aviation Safety Agency; DNV – regulations wind turbine blades and structures), and industry (Airbus – aerospace, Vestas Wind Systems – wind turbines, and Jacobs – construction industry).

The event, which was attended by more than 100 conference participants on and off, was highly successful, with insightful and thought provoking invited talks and many questions and lively discussions.

The programme of the event is listed below with links to the invited presentations which can be downloaded.

Programme

‘Welcome, background and aims of workshop / introduction to speakers’: Janice Barton, Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol, UK

‘CerTest: scientific foundations for a novel framework for performance validation of composite aerostructures relying less on physical testing and adopting digital twinning’, Ole Thomsen, Bristol Composites Institute, University of Bristol, UK

• Janice Barton and Ole Thomsen joint presentation

‘CerTest: enhanced performance and productivity through integration of multi-scale modelling, high-fidelity experimentation and Bayesian learning’, Richard Butler & Andy Rhead, University of Bath, UK

• Richard Butler presentation
• Andy Rhead presentation

‘Developing composite (and other advanced manufactured) product certification – a regulator perspective’, Simon Waite, EASA, DE

‘Overview of current processes and future developments in composites certification – a wind turbine industry perspective’, Chris Harrison, DNV Denmark, DK

‘VVUQ framework to assess credibility of simulation of composite structures’, Ludovic Barriere, IRT Saint Exupéry, F 

‘Regulatory barriers across to efficient validation and certification of composites across sectors and applications’, Enrique Garcia, National Composites Centre, UK 

‘An Airbus perspective on challenges in certification for future airframes’, Linden Harris, Airbus, UK

‘Offshore wind turbine blade certification – challenges and opportunities’, Stephen Randall Vestas Wind Systems, UK

‘Barriers and opportunities in certification of composites for infrastructure applications’, Lee Canning, Jacobs, UK (presentation to follow)

The CerTest team will be attending the 23rd International Conference on Composites Materials taking place from July 30th to August 4th 2023 in Belfast.

The ICCM will feature speakers from CerTest, and a special workshop on ‘Modernising Route to Compliance with Composite Regulations: A Journey towards Virtual Testing and Digital Twinning’. The Bristol Composites Institute, the National Composites Centre and the University of Bath have worked collaboratively to bring together the programme.

For the full list of speakers, please see a downloadable copy below.

The prestigious DIC software platform, Match ID, have published a feature in their latest newsletter on the work that Professor Janice Barton leading supported by Dr Tobias Laux, Dr Riccardo Cappello and Dr Geir Olafsson. It is entitled ‘Application in the picture: Multiaxial testing and imaging of wind turbine blade spar cap to web T-joint.

View the full article and newsletter here.

Congratulations to Janice and her brilliant RC3 team.

The much anticipated Composites Regulations Workshop and Panel Session led by the CerTest team will be taking place on Tuesday 1st of August at ICCM in Belfast.

The 23rd International Conference on Composites Materials will house this special workshop on ‘Modernising Route to Compliance with Composite Regulations: A Journey towards Virtual Testing and Digital Twinning’. There has been a collaborative effort from the Bristol Composites Institute, the National Composites Centre and the University of Bath to put together a workshop that follows on from previous ICCM sessions that addresses ‘industrial needs’

For the full list of speakers and presentations, please see a downloadable copy below.

Rafael Ruiz Iglesias, a PhD student at the University of Bristol, presented at the SEM 2023 conference alongside Senior Research Associate, Geir Olafsson.

Their recent work on Research Challenge 3 – on data rich high fidelity structural characterisation, was presented and well received in Orlando, Florida.

University of Bristol PhD student, Emily Leung, presented a poster and it was part of her Phd work that focused on using mirror assisted imaging techniques to detect and characterize the interface fracture through the face sheets of sandwich structures.

Emily reported that Comptest 2023 was an amazing conference, and it was great to disseminate her work to the attendees and make new connections. Senior Research Associate, Tobias Laux, was also in attendance and confirmed the amazing networking opportunity that the CompTest conference offerred.

11th International Conference on Composite Testing and Model Identification (May 31 – June 2)

CerTest took on CompTest this month with Professor Janice Dulieu Barton’s delivering a Keynote Presentation on Full Field Data Fusion (FFDF) to characterise subsurface defects in composite structures.

Her presentation was one of the highlights of the conference and was very well attended. To view her fantastic presentation, please click here.

JEC World is the global trade show for composite materials and their applications. Held in Paris, JEC World is the industry’s leading event, hosting all the major players in a spirit of innovation, business, and networking.

Principal Investigator, Professor Ole Thomsen, attended along with Professor Janice Barton to learn about new developments taking place in the composite world. With hundreds of product launches, startup cnferences, live demonstrations and networking opportunities, JEC World offers an amazing opportunity for the CerTest team to learn more about new and exciting developments that could impact or influence our research, both current and future, of the certification process and the reshaping of the testing pyramid.

There has been lots going on for two of our CerTest PhD students at the University of Bath. They have each had notable successes this year with their research outputs.

Jiraphant Srisuriyachot’s published paper “Carbon fibre lattice strain mapping via microfocus synchrotron X-ray diffraction of a reinforced composite” has been selected for Diamond Light Source Science Highlights 2022 as well as their 2022/2023 annual review which has not been released yet.

In March this year, Thomas Maierhofer won the 2nd Prize in the SAMPE UK & Ireland Student Seminar Competition 2023 in Belfast. He delivered a brilliant seminar titled: A route to Certification of Bonded Termoset Composite Structures via Resistance Welding.  As a result, Thomas has been invited to represent the UK & Ireland at the 38th SAMPE Europe Student Seminar in Madrid in October this year and will also join and be part of the SAMPE YES committee for one year.

Congratulations to Jay and Thomas!

#CerTest

CerTest Research Associate’s, Tobi Laux and Riccardo Cappello, have recently been visiting the University of Southampton from the University of Bristol. They are currently working on the development of a novel sub-component testing procedure that provides insights that cannot be obtained through traditional coupon or full-scale testing.

To achieve this, we are combining full-field imaging techniques such as Digital Image Correlation and Thermoelastic Stress Analysis to capture detailed information about the behaviour of materials under complex loading conditions.

The activity is conducted on a bespoke multiaxial test rig housed in the Large Structures Testing Laboratory (LSTL) at the University of Southampton, which requires the team to travel there regularly.