Developing Multifunctionally Optimal composite Structures for construction and transportation applications with an emphasis on environmental sustainability

Due to unmitigated global warming, the EU has suffered unprecedented heatwaves in 2022 resulting in over 12,000 deaths and Europe's worst drought in 500 years. This is attributed to the heavily fuel-dependent construction and transportation sectors - collectively responsible for around 60% of EU's greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. The chief reason lies in these industries' over-reliance on legacy/outdated component architectures, with limited life-cycles and non-optimal functional performance. Consequently, there is an urgent ecological-societal need and associated research challenge for tailoring alternative optimized composite structures that are sustainable, eco-friendly and suited for commercial deployment. MultiOpStruct aims to deliver an integrated design environment capable of addressing these concerns by adopting a highly inter-disciplinary methodology inspired by the “material-by-design” outlook; and greatly expanding the current state-of-the-art by coordinating cutting edge research. On the modelling side, the work will develop a novel, rapid and high-fidelity physics-based method custom fit for analysing such complex components. On the design side, the project will deliver the first ever Hybrid Multiscale-Artificial Intelligence Topology Optimization toolbox for multifunctional lightweight Additively Manufactured (AM) Composite structures with increased durability and thermal-vibro-acoustic isolation; and decreased net-costs. This will reduce fuel dependency and associated emissions - and subsequently alleviate problems induced by climate change, e.g., glacier retreat. These goals are strongly aligned with the Circular Economic Action Plan, European Green Deal and Fit for 55 policy. For succesful completion, the proposed research plan brings together an enthusiastic and talented researcher with expertise in computational mechanics with an interdisciplinary team of internationally recognized research groups in applied mechanics and Additive Manufacturing.