Publications related to A review of the fire behaviour of pultruded GFRP structural profiles for civil engineering applications

Enabling simultaneous reprocessability and fire protection via incorporation of phosphine oxide monomer in epoxy vitrimer

The conception of epoxy thermosets with both reprocessability and flame retardancy delineates a new horizon in polymer science, offering a material solution that is not only superior in fire safety but is also environment friendly. Herein, a flame-retardan ...

Journal Mater Sci Technol2024

Self-catalysed frontal polymerisation enables fast and low-energy processing of fibre reinforced polymer composites

Véronique Michaud, Baris Çaglar, Jacobus Gerardus Rudolph Staal

Frontal polymerisation has the potential to bring unprecedented reductions in energy demand and process time to produce fibre reinforced polymer composites. Production of epoxy-based fibre reinforced polymer parts with high fibre volume content, commonly e ...

2024

New Polymers from Biomass-Derived Hydroxycinnamic Acid Derivatives

Ghezae Tekleab

Polymers play a central role in shaping our world across various fields, but their heavy reliance on petrochemicals poses climate change, environmental and health risks. To address and alleviate these issues, transitioning to sustainable polymers, sourced ...

EPFL2024

Highly anisotropic carbon fiber electrodes for DEAs and their dynamic non-monotonic conductive properties

Yves Perriard, Stefania Maria Aliki Konstantinidi, Markus Koenigsdorff

A common method for creating compliant electrodes for dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs) and soft sensors is to incorporate electrically conductive carbon particles into a polymer matrix. However, using unidirectional aligned carbon fibers instead not o ...

Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)2024

Soft Mechanochemistry of Disulfide-Crosslinked Polymer Networks

Zhao Meng

Mechanochemistry harnesses mechanical force to facilitate chemical reactions. Traditionally, the field of polymer mechanochemistry has used methods to activate chemical bonds, which use forces that are larger than those that are required to break a covalen ...

EPFL2024

Additive Manufacturing of Bioinspired Mineral-Based Composites

Ran Zhao

Biominerals are used by natural organisms for example as structural supports and optical sensors. They are produced from a limited number of elements and under ambient conditions. Nevertheless, they often possess excellent mechanical properties and sometim ...

EPFL2024

Near-Room-Temperature Detection of Aromatic Compounds with Inkjet-Printed Plasticized Polymer Composites

Thomas Maeder, Jürgen Brugger, Mohammadmahdi Kiaee

Chemiresistive gas sensors composed of a thermoplastic polymer matrix and conductive fillers offer various advantages for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including low power consumption due to near-room-temperature operation, high sensitivity, ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

Supramolecular Modifications of Semicrystalline Polymers

Michael Alan Giffin

Supramolecular interactions play an important role in defining the structure and the resulting mechanical properties of materials. For instance, interchain hydrogen-bonding in PAs gives them superior strength and stiffness in engineering materials, while t ...

EPFL2023

Incorporation of Lignin in Bio-Based Resins for Potential Application in Fiber-Polymer Composites

Mário Alexandre De Jesus Garrido, Mateus De Assunção Hofmann

Bio-based resins, obtained from renewable raw materials, are a more sustainable alternative to oil-based resins for fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. The incorporation of lignin in those resins has the potential to enhance their performance. This ...

MDPI2023

Recyclable flame retardant phosphonated epoxy based thermosets enabled via a reactive approach

Véronique Michaud, Valentin Rougier

The development of reusable fire-safe polymers with a prolonged lifetime heralds the switch for a transition towards circular economy. In this framework, we report a novel phosphonated thermoset which is composed of networked phosphonate esters containing ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2023

Strategies for energy-efficient frontal polymerisation processing and microstructural evaluation of fibre reinforced composites

Jacobus Gerardus Rudolph Staal

Liquid composite moulding methods are widely applied for manufacturing of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites and consist of two main stages: impregnation of fibrous reinforcements by a liquid monomer resin and curing of this resin. This thesis work ...

EPFL2023

An Overview of Heterogeneous Catalysts Based on Hypercrosslinked Polystyrene for the Synthesis and Transformation of Platform Chemicals Derived from Biomass

Lioubov Kiwi

Platform chemicals, also known as chemical building blocks, are substances that serve as starting materials for the synthesis of various value-added products, which find a wide range of applications. These chemicals are the key ingredients for many fine an ...

MDPI2023

Process development of pre-impregnated hybrid thin-ply composites

Alexios Argyropoulos

Thin-ply composites, obtained with recently developed fiber spreading techniques, rapidly gained industrial interest because they offer a large composite design freedom, and lead to a composite tensile strength that is close to that of the individual fiber ...

EPFL2023

Fire performance evaluation of GFRP-balsa sandwich bridge decks

Niloufar Vahedi

Bridges are a critical component of national infrastructures and economies. A significant percentage of bridges built all around the world are made of reinforced concrete which according to building codes have a life span between 80-100 years. However, str ...

EPFL2022

Capillary Effects in Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite Processing: A Review

Véronique Michaud, Baris Çaglar, Jacobus Gerardus Rudolph Staal, Helena Luisa Teixido Pedarros

Capillarity plays a crucial role in many natural and engineered systems, ranging from nutrient delivery in plants to functional textiles for wear comfort or thermal heat pipes for heat dissipation. Unlike nano- or microfluidic systems with well-defined por ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2022

A life cycle analysis of novel lightweight composite processes: Reducing the environmental footprint of automotive structures

Véronique Michaud, Colin Gomez, Baris Çaglar, Vincent Werlen, Christian Rytka

In this study, three novel thermoplastic impregnation processes were analyzed towards automotive applications. The first process is thermoplastic compression resin transfer molding in which a glass fiber mat is impregnated in through thickness by a thermop ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2022

Cyclic Behaviour of Unidirectional Hybrid Interlayer Glass/Carbon and Carbon/Carbon Composites

Anastasios Vassilopoulos, José Manuel de Sena Cruz

The lack of ductility is a major drawback of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) materials. As it is known, these materials are stiff and strong, but brittle with little or no warning before final failure. In the last decades, some solutions have been proposed ...

SPRINGER-VERLAG SINGAPORE PTE LTD2022

Mechanical Properties of FRP Materials at Elevated Temperature. Definition of a Temperature Conversion Factor for Design in Service Conditions

Thomas Keller, Mário Alexandre De Jesus Garrido

One of the main concerns about the use of fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) materials in civil engineering structural applications is the potential reduction of their stiffness- and strength-related properties when exposed to elevated temperature. The first p ...

SPRINGER-VERLAG SINGAPORE PTE LTD2022

Characterization of the Radiation Resistance of Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastics for Superconducting Magnets

Sandra Sequeira Lopes Tavares

The overall performance of accelerator magnets strongly relies on electrical and mechanical robustness of their components. With an increase of the energy, future particle accelerators will have to withstand integral doses of ionizing radiation of up to se ...

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2022

Engineering of Existing Structures: The Need and Place for Non-destructive Evaluation

Eugen Brühwiler, Numa Joy Bertola, Thomas Schumacher

Structural engineers today are still educated mainly to design new structures. This ignores the fact that structures already exist and need to be maintained. Students are thus often ill-equipped to deal with maintenance and preservation of existing structu ...

2022