Thu, 06 May, 2021
NSIRC, Lloyd's Register Foundation and Cranfield University Doctor of Engineering candidate Jessica Taylor has been successful in passing her Viva.
The news was announced by the Renewable Energy Marine Structures Centre for Doctoral Training (REMS CDT) on LinkedIn, where Jessica Taylor is part of cohort 3. It also made special thanks to board examiners Doctor Javad Razavi from NTNU-Norway and Professor Phil Hart from Cranfield University.
Jessica's thesis project was took place at TWI in Cambridge, with the support of TWI industrial experts, and received industrial supervision and sponsorship from Lloyd's Register Foundation and EPSRC.
Industry sponsored doctoral research for real world application
The applied research from Jessica's studies focuses on the 'Assessment of Crack Arrest Behaviour in Modern Structural Steels.' The way in which materials arrest a fast-running brittle crack is very important for structures where cracks can initiate, particularly in areas prone to low toughness or high local stress. For industries such as oil and gas, shipbuilding and offshore wind, this is vital because structural failure has the potential to cause devastating loss of life and costly replacement of complex assets.
Numerous outcomes of smaller scale projects have been utilised to predict structural behaviour through the use various empirical relationships. But what began to be noticed was that when the more commonly used plates increase in toughness and thickness, the empirical relationships started exceeding their limits of validation. This meant that the behaviour of crack arrest may yet to be entirely understood.
From left, Jessica Taylor, showing fellow NSIRC student Vishal Vats around TWI structural integrity testing facilities in Cambridge. Photo: TWI Ltd
Through this industry based research project as part of the REMS CDT and NSIRC programmes, Jessica worked towards developing test procedures that could make appropriate certification of materials and vessels possible. And in addition, make existing test procedures better optimised for their purpose, in a way that could guarantee compliance with each other and give greater confidence across testing results.
To find our more about Jessica's research, visit her student profile page. Or contact her via the details below:
Contact Jessica about her research
-
Other News stories from NSIRC