Meet the Jury Mohammad Fotouhi on Moving from “strong but silent” materials to “smart and communicative” composites that can warn before failure

Arenberg Doctoral School is proud to invite you to Meet The Jury!

When internationally renowned experts visit KU Leuven as a member of a PhD Examination Committee, we like to seize this opportunity to give this expert a forum to a large audience. All members of Science, Engineering & Technology are most welcome to the Meet The Jury Lectures.

Prof. Mohammad Fotouhi (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands) will give a lecture on “Moving from “strong but silent” materials to “smart and communicative” composites that can warn before failure”.

Composites are truly the materials of the future, due to their excellent properties such as high strength-to-weight ratio, and their use is rising exponentially, continuing to replace or augment traditional materials in sectors such as aerospace, automotive, wind turbine blades, civil engineering infrastructure, and sporting goods. A good example is the construction of large aircraft such as the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787, which are 53% and 50% composite by weight, respectively. Conventional composites such as carbon fibre-reinforced plastics exhibit outstanding mechanical performance: high strength and stiffness, low weight, and low susceptibility to fatigue and corrosion. Despite these advantages, a fundamental and still unresolved limitation of current composites is their inherent brittleness and hidden damage. Failure is often sudden and catastrophic, with little warning or residual load-carrying capacity. A related challenge is their sensitivity to impact damage, which can drastically reduce strength without any visible sign. Structures that appear intact may fail at loads much lower than expected. Consequently, they require complex maintenance procedures and conservative safety margins. This presentation outlines recent developments in high-performance composites with enhanced ductility and visible damage response. These materials are engineered to fail gradually, allowing large deformations while maintaining load-bearing capability and exhibiting clear visual indicators of damage. Such advances offer improved reliability and safety, reduced design and maintenance demands, and extended service life.

Following the lecture, there will be opportunity for young researchers to interact with him.

• Venue: A105, Ghent and Aalst Campuses, Gebroeders De Smetstraat 1, 9000 Gent
• Date: 22 June 2026 – 14:00-14:30
• Prof. Mohammad Fotouhi is visiting KU Leuven on the occasion of the PhD defence of Xin Yang