OptiMACS ITN

European industrial doctorate for efficient multidisciplinary design Optimisation of Multifunctional Aerospace Composite Structures

Modern aeronautical structures, increasingly being made of composite materials, provides a challenge to the structural designer in terms of design optimisation that takes into account all operational constraints (i.e. reliability, stability, strength, weight, noise, manufacturability and cost).

 There is a need to:

  • Develop, deliver and implement novel, accurate and efficient structural Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) tools
  • Nurture and train the next generation of MDO research professionals.

The OptiMACS team is:

  • Inter-sectoral drawing from both academia and industry with all Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) spending at least 50% of their time at one of the industrial beneficiaries
  • Multi-disciplinary combining expertise from mechanical, aerospace, manufacturing and software engineering, as well as from the area of applied mathematics

Meet the ESRs

ESR1 - Georgios Ntourmas
ESR1 – Georgios Ntourmas
‘Development of reliable discretisation schemes and formulation of manufacturing and design rules within gradient-based optimisation’
ESR2 - Giuseppe Corrado
ESR2 – Giuseppe Corrado
‘Design of optimisation criteria for carbon fiber-reinforced plastic laminates in terms of performance and reliability’
ESR3 - Neoklis Traiforos
ESR3 – Neoklis Traiforos
‘Implementation of novel finite element constitutive update schemes for anisotropic, viscoelastic solids to simulate more accurately manufacturing defects’
ESR4 - Massimo Sferza
ESR4 – Massimo Sferza
‘Development of global/local approaches for the analysis and optimisation of composite structures and increasing the computational efficiency of specific performance models through novel global/local approaches’
ESR5 - Weijie Tan
ESR5 – Weijie Tan
‘Development of a methodology for facilitating digital data continuity as well as a seamless modular interaction of all tools and activities contributing to the complete composite development process’

The two pillars of OptiMACS are:

  • Research- OptiMACS will focus on improving the accuracy and efficiency of the MDO platform currently employed by AIRBUS
  • Training- OptiMACS ESRs will be given opportunities to develop transferrable skills alongside their research expertise

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Consortium

University of Nottingham logo
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University of Porto logo
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