COHMAS research trends reflect the current challenges faced by the academic and industrial community for innovative application of composites.

A primary challenge is the systematic use of “virtual testing” for materials and structures. Reducing development costs and times require the availability of highly reliable models for materials that exhibit complex behaviors. That is right for classical short-term degradation. But it is much more critical for mechanical fatigue, high-speed dynamics, chemical or physical aging, or complex coupled loading. Here, end-users are unable to proceed with the experimental qualification. The only way to achieve the structural design is reliable virtual reality. Here, physical based models are of critical interest, as they are the only way to ensure reliability for extrapolation, outside of the classical experimental time scale.

These complex models are often characterized by high numerical complexity. Thus, relevant numerical strategies should be imagined, in order to make their practical simulation affordable. COHMAS works on such strategies, which can be fully validated thanks to the unique computational facilities available in KAUST (supercomputer Shaneen). Another key point is the simplification of these strategies for industrial environment. Indeed, industrial constraints often require the use of specific commercial softwares. Research development may have to be simplified or modified for this purpose. This is a strong component of COHMAS’s potential, allowing our research activities to diffuse into the real world.

No mater how refined a model is, however, its academic or industrial usefulness depends on the availability of an efficient procedure for the identification of its parameters. Our last activity is the development of concepts and strategies for identification based on full field measurements. These fields can be 2D, as classical optical or thermal fields for instance, or 3D, as tomographic observations. This activity is supported by innovative numerical strategies, and by experimental state of the art facilities.