| The
UK and Ireland Chapter of the Society for the
Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE), in
collaboration with the British Composites Society (a division of the
Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining - IOM3), held their Annual
Student Seminar on Thursday, 29th November 2007 at IOM3 HQ
in London. Eleven students representing seven universities took
part. Each gave an interesting well-presented talk on their respective
research project leaving the judges with a difficult decision on who to
put forward for the next round in Europe. The presentations ranged from
the auxetic behaviour of compacted materials, silkworm cocoons and open
cell foams, through bio-resorbable composites and carbon nanotubes to
process- and health-monitoring of composites and self-healing
materials. The full presentations can be found here. Two students were selected to go forward to the European Student Seminar (prior to and during the SAMPE Conference/JEC Exhibition) to be held in Paris during March/April 2008. They were (in alphabetical order): Sang Nguyen (Imperial College London) who presented "Runway debris lofting and impact on aircraft structures" Tim Swait (University of Sheffield) who presented "Interfacial optimisation of glass fibre composites by plasma polymerisation" The third place (reserve for the Paris meeting) was awarded to Andrea Battisti (Cranfield University) who presented "Monitoring the dispersion of carbon nanotubes in unsaturated polyester resin". The organisers would like to thank IOM3 for the provision of the venue and the audio-visual equipment and SAMPE for funding the refreshments. The judges were Sue Panteny (Materials in Transport), Geoff Gould (Surface Transforms plc), Roy McCarthy (a director of SAMPE UK&Ireland Chapter) and John Summerscales (University of Plymouth). Any prospective contestants (primarily research degree candidates, but outstanding undergraduate projects are not excluded) for the competition next year should contact the organiser, Dr John Summerscales at the University of Plymouth School of Engineering (e-mail: jsummerscales@plymouth.ac.uk). A call for participants will be sent to key UK academics in advanced materials in September 2008. If you did not see the invitation this year and would like to, then do ask to be included. |
 SAMPE UK & Ireland Chapter
Student Seminar Participants  SAMPE UK & Ireland Chapter Student seminar winners |