The European aerospace, automotive, and rail industries are committed to improving their energy efficiency to meet targets set within the EU’s climate, energy and transport policies. This is motivating the increased use of lightweight composite materials in lieu of heavier metallics. To implement this transition, these industries must reach the same level of crash performance achieved with metals, but at significantly lower weight and without increasing cost. This is viewed by industry as an exceptionally challenging goal and will require highly trained engineers. The EU Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Innovative Training Network ICONIC (ICONIC ITN – Improving the crashworthiness of composite transportation structures) aims to cultivate such a new generation of young engineers.

The young engineers trained in the ICONIC ITN will be comfortable and fluent in the integration and exploitation of knowledge from fields as diverse as materials science, chemistry, computational methods, textile technology, structural design and optimisation. These researchers will acquire the skills to enable the sustainable design of a new generation of highly efficient, lightweight composite transportation structures.

A total of 15 Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) take up posts, across the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Greece, Germany, Italy and Sweden, in an innovative, multidisciplinary and intersectoral structured research, and technical and transferable skills training programme. A strong consortium from academia, large industrial enterprises and innovative SMEs supports the ICONIC ITN.

Professor Brian G. Falzon from Queen’s University Belfast (United Kingdom) coordinates the ICONIC research project, supported by the ICONIC Management Group. Contact us to learn more about the ICONIC ITN.