Project description

The objective of my PhD research is to study hybrid composites. A hybrid composite contains two or more fibre types bounded by the same matrix. The use of several types of fibres is made so that the best properties of each fibre type are obtained in a single composite.

Currently, the composite materials industry overdesign their components due to a lack of reliable design methods for composites. My research expects to fill that gap developing a model that predicts the failure of unidirectional hybrid composite materials. After achieving such a model, the best combination of fibres and matrix can be determined, validating the model with experimental results.

Education

PhD researcher at KU Leuven (2016-present).

Integrated Master, Mechanical Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal (2011-2016).

Research interests

Hybrid composites, Numerical modelling of composites; Sports related material development

Personal note

My main activity outside of the research is to do sports. I spent about 10 years practicing rowing, always at a competition level. After ending that part of my life, I’m now more interested in long distance sports, like running marathons or even doing long distance triathlons.

My other hobby is mainly to watch movies and series. Nowadays there is huge trend in watching series and that increases their quality. This makes, for me, very interesting to watch the new productions, which have become more and more interesting.

Latest publications by Francisco Mesquita

Direct comparison of the fibre break development in unidirectional carbon fibre composites under tension predicted by statistical methods and measured using 4D in-situ SRCT

American Society of Composites -35th Technical Conference, virtual, 14-17 September 2020

State-of-the-art models for mechanical performance of carbon-glass hybrid composites in wind turbine blades

Risø International Symposium on Material Science, virtual, 7-10 September 2020

Multi-instrument multi-scale experimental damage mechanics for fibre reinforced composites

International Conference On Textile Composites (TEXCOMP-13), Milan, Italy, 17-19 September 2018