We are a team of talented professionals with a wide range of skills and experience. We look forward to working with you.
Principal Investigator (PI)
Dr. Wei Tan is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University London and the head of the research group on “Mechanics of Composite Materials”. He has published over 40 papers in leading journals of composite materials. Other recognitions include the EPSRC New Investigator Award, Cambridge CAPE BlueSky Research Award and Royal Aeronautical Society Bronze Award. His research interests lie in the mechanics of multifunctional composite materials from load-bearing, energy-storage to shape-morphing. His research is focused on understanding and predicting the mechanical response of composite materials via experimental, analytical and computational methods. A brief CV can be found here.
Postdoctoral research fellow
Dr Siamak Khosroshahi
Dr Siamak is a post-doctoral researcher in computer aided engineering (CAE) in the School of Engineering and Materials Science at Queen Mary University London. He has more than ten years of (industrial and academic) experience in the field of design, material characterization and computational mechanics. He has got his PhD in the field of “new energy absorbing materials” from University of Padova in Italy and worked as a researcher at Imperial College London and UCL from 2019 to 2021. Siamak is now working on the use of AI methods in topology optimisation of energy absorbing cellular structures, funded by the EPRSC CELLCOMP project.
PhD students (as primary supervisor)
Emilio Felipe Gomez
Emilio Gomez is a 3rd-year PhD student. He has completed Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering (First Class with Honours) from Queen Mary University of London. He is developing thermally conductive and crashworthy composite materials using thermal-mechanical modelling. His work is funded by Graphene Flagship Core project 3. (Supervisors: Dr Wei Tan, Prof. James Busfield, Prof. Nicola Pugno) [Conf. Paper 1]
Hirak Kansara
Hirak Kansara is a 2nd year PhD student who has completed Master of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering (First Class with Honours) from Queen Mary, University of London. Hirak is currently developing novel cellular composites for Crash Energy Absorption using Data-driven methods, on a project associated with the EPSRC CELLCOMP project. (Supervisors: Dr Wei Tan, Dr. Han Zhang) [Conf. Paper 1]
Wenqi Wang
Wenqi Wang is a 2nd year PhD student at SEMS, Queen Mary. He was educated in the Beijing Institution of Technology from 2014 to 2018 (Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering) and Queen Mary University of London in 2019-2020 (Distinction Master Degree in Mechanical Engineering). He was under the supervision of Dr. Jun Chen in his MSc research project for flight simulation framework research. He also worked in the medical equipment research group of Chinese Academy of Sciences for CT radioactive source materials. Now he is working on the cellular composites structure for crashing energy absorption, mainly focus on the design methods of the micro-structures of cellular composites to improve their mechanical properties, associated with the EPSRC CELLCOMP project. (Supervisors: Dr Wei Tan, Prof. Vassili Toropov)
Jie Yang
Jie Yang is a 1st year PhD student at SEMS, Queen Mary funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) scholarship. He completed his Bachelor and Master Degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Jiangsu University, China. He is interested in coupled electrochemical-mechanical modelling of battery degradations. (Supervisors: Dr. Wei Tan, Dr. Ana Jorge Sobrido)
Afni Restasari
Afni Restasari is a 1st year PhD student at SEMS, Queen Mary University of London funded by Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) scholarship. She completed her Bachelor degree in Chemistry at Diponegoro University, Indonesia. She completed her Master degree in Polymer physics at Kanazawa University, Japan. She is interested in nanoparticles reinforced rubber composites. (Supervisors: Dr. Wei Tan, Prof. James Busfield)
PhD student (as co-supervisor)
Qichen Zhou
Qichen Zhou is a 2nd year PhD student. He received his bachelor’s degree from Zhengzhou University in 2018 and completed his Master’s degree in Mechanics from Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen. Qichen is currently developing a process to prepare silk-based fibre-reinforced composites. He is interested in establishing a mechanical model of this composite using experiments and theories. (Supervisors: Dr. Emiliano Bilotti, Dr. Wei Tan)
MSc student
Kit Au-Yeung
Kit Au-Yeung is an MSc Mechanical Engineering student. He had completed a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering (2:1) from Coventry University. He is currently under the supervision of Dr Wei Tan in his MSc research project: Phase-Field Fracture Modelling of Anisotropic Composite Laminates.
Alumni
Visiting PhD student
Zhengqiang Cheng
Zhengqiang Cheng was a visiting third-year PhD student funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) scholarship and educated in the Beihang University, China and the Queen Mary University of London. He received his Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China. His research features the impact damage tolerance of composites and aeronautical aluminium-alloy. (Supervisors: Dr Wei Tan, Prof. Jun-Jiang Xiong) [Paper 1] [Paper 2] [Paper 3] [Paper 4]
Current position: Assistant Professor at Southwest Jiaotong University
MEng students
2021-2022 MEng students
SustainWind: Haydn Siu Hay Yick, Humaira Patel, Md Muntasir Sarker, Syed Salah Uddin Ali, Yehuda Zev Hodges. (Supervisors: Dr. Wei Tan, Prof. James Busfield)
ArchElectrode: Aqil Ali, Jabril Ahmed Abdinur, Mogomotsi Mbeha, Rafi Istidar Farhad Rahman, Syed Moizz Ali. (Supervisors: Dr. Wei Tan, Dr. Ana Sobrido) – “Best MEng Project 2022“
2020-2021 MEng students
Project title: The crashworthiness of carbon nanotube composite electrodes for energy-storage applications. (Supervisors: Dr. Wei Tan, Prof. James Busfield) – “Best MEng Project 2021, [Paper 1]“
Group members: Abdulaziz NASIRUDDIN, Evangelos KOLIOLIOS, Daniel MILLS, Wei-KONG MAO
Project title: 3D Printed Cellular Composites for Impact Mitigation or Crash Energy Absorption
Group members: Gary KOH, Merrin Rose VARGHESE, Hirak KANSARA, John LUK
3rd year UG students
2021-2022: Daryx Francisco Morales, Majuhar Meidine
Group photo
Academic collaborators
Dr. Adam Boies, Dr. Michael De Volder, Prof. Norman Fleck, University of Cambridge, UK
Dr. Emilio Martínez Pañeda, Imperial College London,UK
Prof. Brian Falzon, Director of RMIT’s Space Industry Hub, Australia
Dr. Miguel Bessa, Dr. Sid Kumar, Delft University of Technology, Netherland
Dr. Lucas Meza, University of Washington, US
Dr. Haibao Liu, Cranfield University, UK
Dr. Mingchao Liu, University of Oxford, UK
Dr. Yinfeng He, University of Nottingham, UK
Awards
1. EPSRC New Investigator Award, £392k, 2021-2024
2. Bronze Award, Written Paper Prize, Royal Aeronautical Society, UK, 2018
3. Cambridge BlueSky Research Award, Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics, £20k, 2017-2018
4. ‘Nano-man‘ , Cambridge Engineering Departmental Photo Competition, SEM Prize, 2017
5. Second best research poster in Sir Bernard Crossland Competition, UK, 2013
wtanlab.com 
