The MATERIALS AND DESIGN FOR LIGHTWEIGHTING Research Group works in the field of materials and design methods for the structural lightening of mechanical components, with particular reference to applications in the automotive, transportation and more generally industrial sectors, with a view to improving their sustainability and performance.
Thanks to the complementary skills of the group's components, which include mechanical design, metallurgy, and materials science, problems related to the lightweighting and development of innovative components can be approached in an integrated manner, considering both aspects related to the selection and characterization of materials and methods of calculation and validation, numerical or experimental.
The Group's activities, by virtue of its interdisciplinary nature, thus cover both Applied Research, aimed at the design and optimization of structural components, and Basic Scientific Research, regarding the mechanical characterization of metal alloys, composites and polymers, with a particular focus on emerging technologies such as Additive Manufacturing.
The Group actively collaborates with companies in the area, offering itself as a partner for the industry for collaborations and research projects.
Expertise and activities
- Fatigue design
- Design for Additive Manufacturing
- Post additive treatments (thermal, chemical, mechanical) to identify solutions that improve component performance
- Tribological characterization (ambient and high T, presence of lubricant or aggressive environment)
- Metallographic analysis and Fracture surface analysis
- FEM simulation
- Experimental methods for strain measurement (DIC, Strain Gages)
- Composite and polymeric materials characterization and modeling
- Metamaterials and Lattice Structures, Topological Optimization
- Fracture Mechanics
- Characterization of possible welds
- Study of corrosion resistance
date/time interval:
(January 1, 2020 - )