Engineering PhD student wins best paper prize

Rabia Abid, a PhD student supervised by Professor Manu Haddad at the Morgan-Botti Lightning Laboratory, has won Best Paper at the 50th International Universities Power Engineering Conference (UPEC 2015).

Approximately 250 papers were submitted, with Rabia’s work on ‘Mechanisms of Damage Propagation in Carbon Composites under High Impulse Current Magnitudes’ clinching the top spot at the event, hosted this year at Staffordshire University.

Rabia’s paper addresses the fact that in order to make greater savings in aircraft fuel consumption, the aviation industry is moving towards the use of composite materials to reduce aircraft weight. However, these lightweight composite structures are more vulnerable to lightning strikes. To assess the extent of this vulnerability, Rabia has conducted a series of experiments looking at the residual mechanical strength of the aircraft after lightning strikes.

“I am absolutely delighted to have been honoured with this award,” Rabia told the School. “As we move to different materials in our bid to make our world greener, we have to reassess our safety precautions, making sure innovation is tested and applied in a responsible way.”

UPEC 2015 provides engineers and academia with a forum from which they can explore various aspects of Power Engineering. The conference is accompanied by a Technical Exhibition, showcasing the very latest developments in the field.

Established as a University led conference series, UPEC has been held in the UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Germany and Romania.