Bath Engineering & Design Studentships: PROTECT: Protective Resilient cOmposites for exTreme Environments and Critical infrasTructures

This project is one of a number in competition for a studentship from the Faculty of Engineering and Design at the University of Bath. If successful, this studentship is expected to commence 04 October 2027.

An alternative start date may be possible if agreed with your intended supervisors and the Doctoral College.

Extreme weather events, natural disasters and increasingly demanding operating environments are creating an urgent need for advanced materials capable of protecting people, equipment and critical infrastructure from severe mechanical loading. Building on the University of Bath’s expertise in impact-resistant composite structures, this PhD project will develop a new generation of lightweight protective materials designed to withstand impact and shock loading in extreme environments.
The research will focus on the design and manufacture of novel composite structures incorporating additional energy-dissipation mechanisms to improve resistance to severe out-of-plane loads and will be tailored for protective devices. The project will combine materials design, advanced manufacturing, and static and dynamic characterisation of composites, and will be supported by analytical, numerical and experimental approaches.
The PhD will follow a “multiscale” methodology: starting from the material level, the project will investigate the interaction between the individual constituents and their influence on interfacial behaviour, then moving at the structural level, where it will explore how novel hybrid reinforcement architectures can control damage initiation, crack propagation and energy absorption. Finally, the project will scale up the proposed solutions and assess their effectiveness in a real protective structure.
A key element of the project will be the development of innovative sandwich structures for body-armour applications. These will combine hybrid fibre-reinforced composite face sheets with advanced multifunctional cores incorporating hierarchical lattice architectures and smart fluids. By tailoring the interaction between these different components, the project will seek to achieve enhanced impact resistance, energy absorption and structural protection. In addition, the research will also investigate the integration of multifunctional capabilities, including embedded in-situ damage detection and SHM (structural health monitoring) features, allowing protective structures to provide information on their integrity following an impact event.
This PhD offers the opportunity to work across materials science, composite manufacturing, experimental mechanics and structural engineering, with potential applications extending from personal protection to the safeguarding of equipment and critical infrastructure in hazardous and extreme environments.