Advanced Aerospace Structures

Composite materials and lightweight structures are essential for modern aircraft and spacecraft that are efficient and effective. Adding additional functionality to lightweight structures and materials enables even greater improvements in aerospace performance. This group, led by Professor Craig Steeves, conducts research in the area of efficient, lightweight aerospace structures. A particular focus is the combination of materials and geometry in novel structures that are not only light, stiff and strong, but that also have additional properties that can be tailored to a specific application. For example, by modifying the local fibre direction in a composite material, the vibrational characteristics of a composite structure can be controlled. A substantial portion of the group's research involves finding methods to change structural properties and use these to design optimal structural systems.

Key areas of interest include composite sandwich structures and nanocrystalline metals. In both cases, the high performance material properties are combined with novel microarchitecture to achieve functional goals which are otherwise unobtainable. Examples are the hybridisation of complex polymer microtrusses with nanocrystalline metal coatings to fabricate complex near-net-shape structures with exceptionally high performance materials; and local design of a truss-core composite sandwich to improve acoustic transmission performance.

One key concept for many of these projects is the use of periodic lattice geometries, which are like two-dimensional or three-dimensional truss systems. Because the geometry and materials can be selected independently, it is possible to build lattices which have properties which are unavailable in solid, monolithic materials. Thus, it is possible to create lattices which are strong and stiff, but also act as acoustic or vibration filters. Alternately, a strong, stiff lattice can have zero or negative thermal expansion. If the lattice is fabricated at a sufficiently small scale, it is possible to have a structure which, to the human eye, looks like a solid piece of material, but with unprecedented properties. Such combinations of structure and material can be thought of as metamaterials.

Further information on the research projects as well as a complete directory of the group's members is available on the following pages. A list of the most recent publications and links to our collaborators are online for your convenience. Research projects which may have open positions for graduate students will also be listed here.