In optimizing the properties of functional materials it is essential to understand in detail how structure influences properties. Identification of the most important structural parameters is time-consuming and usually investigated by preparing many different chemical modifications of a material, determining their crystal structures, measuring their physical properties and then looking for structure-property correlations. It is also necessary to assume that the chemical modifications have no influence other than to distort the structure, which is often not the case.

The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of the nature of the interface between rubber and ice. It is a collaborative project with Michelin. We use tribological testing and materials characterisation techniques in a specially designed cold room facility to do this. Ultimately this knowledge will be used to improve tyre traction on ice.

Hydrogen is expected to be highly valuable energy carrier for the 21st century as it should participate in answering main societal and economical concerns. To exploit its benefits at large scale, further research and technological developments are required. In particular, the storage of hydrogen must be secured. Even if burst in service of pressure vessels in composite material is very unlikely, when exposed to a fire, they present safety challenges imposing to correctly size their means of protection.

This project is concerned with socially integrated mitigation of multiple structural risks in the urban environment, with a focus on the linked risks of earthquake and fire. Fire is the largest contributor to building damage following earthquakes. To date, this research area has largely been ignored as it crosses the boundaries between the knowledge areas of earthquake and fire safety engineering. The combination of factors adds to the challenges in risk estimation already existing in each distinct area. There is currently no universally accepted method for accounting for the effect of strengthening practices on building vulnerability to earthquakes (let alone earthquakes followed by fire). In the case of fire safety engineering, few credible techniques for damage estimation or risk-based design currently exist due to a lack of requisite input data. This project will develop, through large scale structural testing and computational analysis, new technical engineering solutions to these problems. And, for the first time, these technical engineering solutions will be developed explicitly accounting for the social context within which they are to be enacted.