The annual Bristol Composites Institute Doctoral Research Symposium is now a well-established event in the calendar, attracting external interest from both industry and academia, and offering great experience to the researchers in each cohort.

2022 saw the return of the Symposium as an in person networking event held at Engineer's House in Bristol, centred around our CDT students showcasing their PhD projects and sharing their latest composite doctoral research through a mixture of posters and presentations. Please see the Symposium Poster Booklet 2022 (PDF, 10,005kB) to view all student posters. You can also download the Programme (PDF, 64kB) or see the schedule below. ‌

BCI Doctoral Research Symposium Schedule

09:00 - Poster Session

10:00 - Welcome and Introduction (PDF, 710kB) by Professor Steve Eichhorn, Director, CoSEM Centre for Doctoral Training.‌

10:10 - Technical presentations on current PhD research by our Third and Fourth Year students, chaired by Professor Ian Hamerton:

Materials Theme Presentation - Materials (PDF, 7,214kB)

• PLA-HYDROGEL FRACTAL ACOUSTIC COMPOSITE METAMATERIAL FOR SOUND INSULATION (Gianni Comandini) 
• The Influence of the Humidity on the Mechanical Properties of 3D Printed Continuous Flax Fibre Reinforced Poly(lactic acid) Composites (Charles De Kergariou) 
• Life Cycle Framework and Sustainable Design (Will Proud) 
• A Computational Chemistry Approach ​to Modelling High Strain Rate Viscoelastic Materials (Matt Bone) 
• Microporous Carbon/Sulfur Composites for Hydrogen Storage (Charlie Brewster) 
• Advanced High-Fidelity Modelling of Woven Composites (Ruggero Filippone) 
• Architecture Optimization of 3D-Printable Lattice Structures with an Evolutionary-Based Approach (Athina Kontopoulou) 
• 4DBioMArc: Project Overview​ (Joe Surmon) 

Structures Theme Presentation - Structures (PDF, 9,991kB)‌

• GATOR Morphing Aircraft Skins​ (Rafael Heeb) 
• WrapToRTruss Stiffened Skin Panels for Aerospace Applications (Chris Grace) 
• Embedded Stiffening Grids in Laminated Plates and Shells (Calum McInnes) 
• Design of 3D Printed Wind Turbine Blades Using Topology Optimisation​ (Alex Moss) 

Manufacturing & Design Theme Presentation - Manufacturing & Design (PDF, 2,222kB)‌

• Prosthetic Socket Design: Development of Functional Requirements (Kevin Alarcon) 
• The most influential uncertainties in thermoset curing (Adam Fisher)

11:45 - 1 minute oral overviews of Posters (PDF, 3,266kB) ‌by our Second Year students

12:00 - Guest alumni speaker Dr Michael Dicker – Introduced by Professor Paul Weaver, Director, ACCIS Centre for Doctoral Training

12:30 - Posters Session and Lunch

14:00 – Conference closed