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The good signs were evident when SIMLab presented itself to
potential project and master’s students in May: 30 NTNU students
in their fourth year attended the meeting. The impression was
further strengthened when 17 of them put SIMLab as first choice
for their project and master’s work. Although they were not at the
information meeting, another 17 students had the same priority,
adding up to a total of 34 students. This is considerably better
than the 2015 total of 25 and an all-time high.
BETTER GENDER BALANCE
In the application for a new SFI, SIMLab stressed its ambition
to recruit more female students and staff. Several measures
have been taken since SFI CASA opened officially on 1 July 2015.
The project and master’s applications in 2016 seem to reflect
that the work is beginning to pay off: in 2015, only 5 of the 25
applicants were female. In 2016, 10 applicants were female. Even
with the total number up to 34, the female percentage increased
considerably.
PRESENTATIONS AND GUIDED TOUR
The presentation in May was led by Professor Arild Holm Clausen,
who started by introducing the students to SIMLab and the content
of the project and master’s work. He also told the students that
CASA partners BMW, Toyota and Audi want to engage a number of
master’s students in specific research tasks.
Professor Holm Clausen was followed by three PhD candidates.
Vegard Aune presented his work on the behaviour and modelling
of deformable plates subjected to blast loading, Jens Kristian
Holmen talked about computer-aided design of lightweight
protective structures and Erik Løhre Grimsmo about the behaviour
of steel joints, nuts, bolts and welds under impact loading.
Master’s students Henrik Møgster Granum and Lars Marcus Løken
followed suit.
After the presentations, the group was given a guided tour of
SIMLab’s lab facilities. This included a demonstration of what
happens when the kicking machine hits a shock absorber.
MIXED GROUP
The students at the presentation specialized in both structural
engineering in the Engineering and ICT programme and the
Civil and Environmental Engineering programme and industrial
mechanics in the Mechanical Engineering programme.
Pizza, refreshments and informal conversation between staff, PhD
candidates and interested students rounded off the session.
CONTINUED INTEREST
Of the 34 students that applied in May, 30 eventually carried
out their project work at SIMLab during the autumn. 23 of these
continued with their master’s theses in 2017. Although the
number of female students has fallen to five, this means that 22
per cent of the participants are female: still a record.
One of the five is Else Tjønn, pictured on the opposite page with
supervisor Kevin A. Ford. Her master’s thesis deals with the
challenges of debris in space.
ENTERING SPACE
Here she explains:
“One of the great challenges when it comes to space travel is the
large amount of debris orbiting the earth at very high velocities.
This debris is mostly man made and stems from old satellites,
launch vehicles etc. It may impact against a spacecraft at up to
16 km/s in the low earth orbit, possibly leading to the loss of
vehicle and crew.
All spacecraft today are covered to some degree with shields for
protection from this debris. One of the goals in my thesis is to
simulate these hypervelocity impacts using new methods and see
if there is a good resemblance to the physical experiments that
are already performed. I will also be looking at various designs to
see if there is a possibility of improvement.”
ASTRONAUT SUPERVISOR
As mentioned, one of Else Tjønn’s supervisors is Kevin A. Ford.
The accomplishments of this newly recruited NTNU researcher
include a long military career, a PhD in astronautical engineering
and a total of 157 days in space.
In the picture, the two have a rendezvous in SIMLab’s gas gun,
where Else Tjønn is going to perform some of her tests. The image
illustrates well one of the main conclusions from SFI CASA’s
Scientific Advisory Board after their meeting last October: the
centre’s unique combination of experimental facilities in blast,
ballistics and fragmentation gives an opportunity to invent new
material systems for protection.
Record Interest in
Student interest in the SIMLab research group has never been higher.
This is promising news for the quality of SFI CASA master’s students and PhD candidates.
SIMLab