With a passion for understanding materials in design, I develop tools and methods to support design engineers in developing more sustainable products. My research focuses on reuse of complex materials, starting with composites.
Composites (i.e. fibre reinforced plastics) are an attractive materials choice for designers, as they combine high modulus materials with freedom of form, resulting in lightweight mechanical structures. Closing the resource loop for composite materials remains a major challenge, the very properties that make these materials so attractive during use work against them at the recycling stage. Often the recycled output from such processes is of significantly lower quality than the original material. Moreover, composites perform exceptionally well as fully integrated materials, but not as fragmented bulk materials.
The challenges for integrated (composite) materials are similar to those faced with integrated structures, such as an aircraft fuselage. There, various high-end materials are combined to achieve optimal performance—lightweight, strong, and reliable/safe. Reuse in the same function is often not feasible for economic or technical reasons. In addition, the combination of different materials makes it difficult to recycle them without significant loss of quality. Mixing different metal fractions, for instance, leads to contamination and loss of alloy properties, as well as the heat treatments that make these metals valuable in the first place.
In my research, I develop design strategies and tools for products containing complex & integrated materials and structures in a Circular Economy. My work is related to a number of projects, such as Ecobulk (Horizon2020), LICHEN-Blades (NWO-KIC) and Structural Reuse by Design (TU Delft Climate Action). A selection of publications can be found on this website, for a full overview of publications and other outreach, please check my PURE profile or Google Scholar profile.
Reverse forming thermoplastic composites
Structural reuse offers a promising alternative to traditional composite recycling by keeping the original material…
Recycling wind turbine blades
This document supports IEA Wind Task 45: Recycling Wind Turbine Blades, focusing on opportunities to…
Circular Composites
Circular Composites: A design guide for products containing composite materials in a circular economy Composites…
Design method testing
Circular Composites by Design: Testing a Design Method in Industry The design of composite products…
Circular design framework
Circular Design of Composite Products: A Framework Based on Insights from Literature and Industry Composite…
Structural reuse through segmentation
Composite materials offer many advantages during the use phase, but recovery at the end of…
Structural reuse: design case study
How to design a composite product to facilitate structural reuse? Structurally reusing parts of end-of-life…
Offshore wind farm decommissioning
A significant part of wind energy in the Netherlands is generated by offshore wind farms…
Ecobulk progress reports
Project Ecobuk aims to demonstrate a Circular Economy for products containing composite materials. Together with…
