Postdoc / Study of damping and vibration of composite materials made of natural fibers

We are looking for a highly motivated postdoctoral researchers for building together innovative projects to apply for Marie-Sklodowska Curie European Fellowships to the next call (September 2018). MSCA-EF are prestigious fellowships funded by the European Commission. They offer a rare opportunity to talented scientists: the chance to set up research programmes of their own. They provide an attractive grant for 1 to 2 years including salaries (around 2500€ net per month, with social care included) and allowances for mobility, family and research.

The topic and team below have been identified for welcoming you to develop your research project at UBS and helping you to write a winning proposal for the European submission in September.

General description of the project:
Keywords: composite structures, damping modelling, natural fibers, vibration, experimental tests, numerical method

Project context:
Composite structures are present in many areas that is to say water sports, ship-building, air- and railroad- transport, automotive industry and also leisure activities or renewable energies, for example wind turbines. The advantages of such structures lie in their vibration- and sound effect damping properties and their lightweight. Their "lightweight" is an appealing and attractive property for industrialization, especially in transport where it generates significant energy savings. This is a key-issue in a context where energy prices keep increasing and finite resource are gradually depleting.

There are several types of composites: man-made composites with carbon-, glass- and Kevlar- fibers and from now on, natural fiber composites with flax- and hemp-fibres. According to Fibre Research Development, in France, plant fibers harvest amounts to 180,000 tons per year. This is all the more interesting as they constitute a renewable and short circuit resource. Furthermore, it should be noted that the energy cost for manufacturing these composites is lower than that of the man-made composites. However, even if natural fibers represent the third fibre supply-source, their use remains moderate. Moreover, experimental and numerical studies of composite structures based on natural fibers are less numerous than for those made of carbon or glass.

The objective of this project is to meet this increasing demand from industrialists for bio-based composites by contributing to better understanding and modelling of the damping properties [1].
Relevant approaches of the natural fiber composite include influence of material characteristic (rate of fibres, orientation of fibres…) and the natural sensitivity of temperature and/or hygrometry [2], ageing of natural fibers and consequences on the mechanical properties, study of influence of the variability of material on the vibration features,  …

The Marie‐Curie fellowship aims at providing a better knowledge on composites based on natural fibers in view of industrial applications: noise reduction by acoustic absorption in buildings, in cars or in military systems …
References:
[1] H.P. Lee, B.M. PunNg, A.V. Rammohan. An investigation of the Sound Absorption Properties of Flax/Epoxy Composites Compared with Glass/Epoxy Composites. Journal of natural Fibers, 14, (2017) 71-77.
[2] K. Chéour, M. Assarar, D. Scida, R. Ayad, XL Gong, Effect of water ageing on the mechanical and damping properties of flax-fibre reinforced composite materials. Composites Structures, 152 (2016) 259-266.
 
MSCA-EF are prestigious fellowships funded by the European Commission. They offer a rare opportunity to talented scientists: the chance to set up research programmes of their own. They provide an attractive grant for 1 to 2 years including salaries and allowances for mobility, family and research
 
Applicants must be «Experienced Researchers» (i.e. by the time of the MSCA deadline, be in possession of a doctoral degree or have at least four years of full-time equivalent research experience). Applicants can be of any nationality but must not have spent more than 12 months in France in the 3 years immediately prior to MSCA deadline
 
To apply, please e-mail your expression of interest to anne-sophie.refloch@2PE-bretagne.eu (object of the email : MSCA application), joining the following documents (in pdf format):
- a CV (including a list of publications and the exact date of your stay in each position and/or country)
- a research outline document (up to 2 pages) describing the possible research activities you want to pursue at UBS and identifying the research synergies with the UBS faculty members / pre-identified topic.

Following the reception of your application, the eligibility of your profile for a MSCA-EF application will be checked, and then the identified supervisor will select the most promising applications regarding the excellence-based competitive conditions and evaluation criteria of the MSCA-IF programme and contact them in due course for further discussions and proposal writing until September 2018. If funded, the project proposed in September 2018 could start in May 2019.

To be crystal clear, this is the responsibility of the fellow to develop and write his/her own application proposal, but the supervisor will be deeply involved in the co-writing of the proposal and you will also receive dedicated support from the European office to write a persuasive proposal in a continuous follow-up process.