IMX Talks - Sustainability driven composite materials development

Structural polymer composite materials development has been driven by aerospace, sports and many industrial applications by leveraging their high specific mechanical properties, tailorable processing methods from prototypes to large volume production, corrosion and fatigue resistance, among other benefits. Thanks to these properties, these materials are crucial in the development of light-weight transport vehicles, wind mill rotor blades, hydrogen pressure vessels, compressors and open fan rotors,... which form an integral part of the current approach to reduce our environmental footprint.  On the other hand, composite materials suffer from the use of high embodied energy materials, generally require high energy, pressure and long times to heat-up and process the parts, and are difficult to deal with in their end of life.
Our laboratory explores various strategies to reconcile these a-priori antagonistic propositions, through the use of alternative fiber and polymer sources, the optimisation of processing methods, the development of lower energy manufacturing processes using out-of-autoclave, frontal or UV driven polymerization, up to design concepts promoting in-situ repair, disassembly, recycling and circular economy concepts. The need to evaluate the environmental impact of a priori sustainable materials and manufacturing methods for specific application scenarios will also be highlighted with concrete examples from our current research.

Bio: Véronique Michaud is currently head of the Laboratory for Processing of Advanced Composites at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, in Switzerland. She graduated in 1987 from Ecole des Mines in Paris with an engineering degree, in 1991 from MIT with a PhD in Materials Engineering, and obtained a Research Habilitation from INPG in France in 1994. After a post-doctoral research stay at MIT, she spent 3 years at Ecole Centrale in Paris for teaching and research in the Laboratory for Materials, Structures and Soils Mechanics, before joining EPFL in 1997 as post-doctoral researcher, then adjunct professor in 2009, and associate professor in 2017. Her fields of research address fundamental aspects of composite materials processing, from a technical but also economic and environmental perspective , as well as the development of smart materials and structures including self-healing, shape and vibration control and tailored damping. She is the author of more than 370 publications, out of which about 180 in peer-reviewed journals, and several patents. She is co-founder of the start-up CompPair Technologies SA, which was created in 2020, served as Associate Dean for Education for the faculty of Engineering from 2017-2023, represents EPFL in the board of the association "ecoinvent" and is European Editor for the journal Composites Part A.