Centre for Advanced Composite Materials


Our people

As a large multidisciplinary institute, the Centre is comprised by our diverse academic, scientific, technical and administrative staff.

Director

Professor Simon Bickerton Director, Professor in Mechanical Engineering
Research areas include: Manufacturing processes for composite materials; exeperimentation, control, and modelling, robust manufacturing, considering material and process variability along with the manufacture of synthetic and natural fibre reinforced plastics.
Dr Mark Battley Deputy Director, Senior Lecturer in Engineering Science
Involved in analysis and design, testing methods, numerical modelling and non-destructive testing, marine, aeronautical and industrial applications.
Academic staff
Distinguished Professor Debes Bhattacharyya Professor in Mechanical Engineering 
Research in natural fibre reinforced polymer composites, graphene materials, coronary stents, waste materials utilisation and flame retardant composites.
Associate Professor Krishnan Jayaraman Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering
Areas of research in microstructure/property relationships, fibre-reinforced composites, natural fibre composites and life cycle assessment.
Associate Professor Piaras Kelly Associate Professor in Engineering Science
Research interests in thermomechanical modelling, mathematical and computational techniques for manufacturing and the fracture and failure of knee prostheses.
Dr Richard Lin Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering 
Research involving machinability, tribological characteristics and recyclability of composites, manufacturing and evaluation of thermoplastic composites.
Dr Tom Allen Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering
Research areas include: Composites analysis, finite element modelling, hull slamming, liquid composite moulding and natural fibre composites
Dr Jianyong Jin Senior Lecturer in Chemical Sciences
Research in materials and synthetic chemistry.

Research associates

Dr Velram Mohan

Research areas include: Applied polymer science and engineering, graphene-based materials and their composites, 3D printing of polymer-graphene hybrid composites and natural fibre fabric-polymer sandwich structures and their adhesion improvement.
Dr Arcot Somashekar Research interests include the manufacture, processing and properties of microfibrillar polymer composites, compressive deformation of glass fibre reinforcement.
Dr Daesung Jung Research areas include: coating and surface treatment, natural fibre based flame retardant, nanocomposite.
Dr Nam Kyeun Kim Research interests in fire retardant natural fibre reinforced composites, fire reaction properties and testing techniques, composites flammability for aircraft interiors and building materials, fire modelling, protein/cellulose fibres and biopolymers.
Dr Maedah Amirpour Research in continuum and solid mechanics, mechanics of composite and multifunctional materials (such as Functionally Graded Materials), damage and failure mechanisms, analytical modelling, coupling finite element computational simulation and Digital Image Correlation technique.
Dr Monireh Fazeli Research involving manufacturing of 3D woven structures based on carbon fibres, the design of a suitable resin transfer moulding process for impregnation of 3D woven node structures.

Administrative staff

Sheeja Sajan Research Programme Coordinator
Graeme Finch Business Development Manager
Experienced at managing R&D teams in the government, corporate and private sectors. Interested in ensuring good alignment between academic research and strategic industry needs with a passion for ensuring commercially successful application of research to benefit the New Zealand industry.

Technical staff

Jos Geurts Technical Manager
Experienced in mechanical properties testing of parts, assemblies, and materials such as composites, thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers, natural fibres to metals and more.
Callum Turnbull Technician
Fitting, turning, machining and welding
Stephen Cawley Technician
Data acquisition, instrumentation and material properties testing
Andrea Tinone Technician
Polymers processing
Albina Avzalova Technician
Polymer chemistry

PhD students

Abdolmajid Alipour

Nanocomposites based on Epoxy/Graphene/Natural Fibre

Abhi Ramesh

Effect of Voids and Wrinkles in Curved Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer Parts

Agee Susan Kurian

Development and Characterisation of Stretchable Graphitic Composite Sensors

Avishek Chanda

Fibre-reinforced Timber for Novel Hybrid Folded Thin-Walled Structures

Balaji Muthuvel

Development of the Direct Wet-Pressing Process to Manufacture Fibre Reinforced Plastic Components

Christian Netzel

Defect Formation in Advanced Composite Structures Produced from Prepreg Materials

Günther Höfler

Stiffness enhancement of Rotationally Moulded Products

Hamid Souri

Development of Multifunctional Electronic Devices Based on Natural and Carbon Materials

Hamza Ahmed Qazi

Revitalising Recycled Carbon Fibre for Advanced Composites Part Manufacturing

Kariappa Maletira Karumbaiah

Fatigue behaviour of composites under the influence of local geometric features and realistic manufacturing defects

Kai-Yeung Li

Prediction and characterisation of global structural response of embedded roadway IPT systems subjected to traffic loading

Mohammad Rajaei

Effects of Flame Retardant Additives on Composites Performance

Raveen John

Machinability of Natural Fibre Composites

Sam van Oosterom

Quantifying the Magnitude and Influence of Manufacturing Induced Defects in Advanced Composite Structures Produced using Liquid Moulding

Shafaq Ikram

Evaluation of multi-functional properties of biochar reinforced composites

Swagata Dutta

Understanding and Modelling the Thermo-mechanical Response of FRP Composites

Tino Hermann

Airflow Based Quality Measurements for Semi-finished Textiles

Willsen Wijaya

Modelling RTM with Braided Structures - From Textile Modelling to Mould Filling Simulations

ME students

Daniel Kent

Multi-Objective Optimisation of Carbon Fibre Sailing Yacht Masts

Hamed Abdoli

Fast and Efficient Air-based Permeability Evaluation of Reinforcement Textiles and Stacks

Ryan Calder

Validation of finite element analysis of aluminium to composite bonded joints in aircraft interiors