The Chair for "PICAR­Die digi­ti­zed mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring” arose through conclu­sions drawn in a stra­te­gic reflec­tion about the future mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring inas­much as it enables the actors to throw light on one of Picardie’s mains­tay sec­tors and which also consti­tutes a pro­minent research theme at UTC. It was indeed in UTC’s desire to struc­ture its offer in mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring and to acquire jobs and means to respond favou­ra­bly to the chal­lenges facing the indus­trial part­ners. Among these chal­lenges we have the glo­bal eco­no­my that gene­rates strong com­pe­ti­tion, for which the only solu­tion in the long terms is conti­nuous inno­va­tions of pro­ducts and services.

Objectifs

Tea­cher res­pon­sible for the chair : Adnan Ibrahimbegovic

Strategic objectives

The Chair for "PICAR­Die digi­ti­zed mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring" repre­sents a chan­nel for UTC to express its stra­te­gic vision and inter­con­nects 3 mis­sions inherent to Mecha­ni­cal Engi­nee­ring: Trai­ning, Research and Innovation.

The UTC-Rober­val Labo­ra­to­ry (Mecha­ni­cal Engi­nee­ring) is the main actor, with some 50 research scientists/lecturers and the Chair will help conso­li­date their inter-team acti­vi­ties, increase visi­bi­li­ty and enhance inter­na­tio­nal recog­ni­tion. It will also enable an exten­sion of the scope of trai­ning offe­red and to deve­lop new indus­trial partnerships.

Scientific objectives

Among the scien­ti­fic areas inves­ti­ga­ted, the fol­lo­wing are noteworthy:

• Mul­ti-scale ques­tions, which are omni­present in mate­rial ana­ly­sis (for hete­ro­ge­neous forms). For example, when we seek to define rele­vant pre­dic­tive models for hot cor­ro­sion (a fac­tor that affects the life expec­tan­cy for mate­rials used in the nuclear sec­tor, for auto­mo­bile mani­fold, exhaust pipes and muf­flers), you need to be able to ana­lyse mate­rial beha­viour at varying scales, from net­works to single atoms.
• Shock, impact or fast dyna­mic beha­viours. Ana­ly­sis is used here to stu­dy the life expec­tan­cy of wel­ded parts in car frames, or for com­po­sites used in aero­nau­ti­cal construc­tion or in the rail­road sectors.
• Approaches to mecha­ni­cal fai­lure ques­tions, cal­ling for digi­tal model­ling to stu­dy faults, from start through pro­pa­ga­tion up to final part fai­lure and mate­rial breaks.
• Resol­ving mul­ti-phy­si­cal pro­blems, such as the anta­go­nis­tic form of seve­ral parts in a pro­duct desi­gn pro­to­col. For example, ligh­te­ning vehicle (mass sha­ving) is often contra­dic­to­ry to noise insu­la­tion and resis­tance of the vehicle to crash situations.

An interdisciplinary research project

Moreo­ver, the Chair will make it pos­sible to share the wide range of skills pos­ses­sed by the UTC Rober­val labo­ra­to­ry, reco­gni­zed as a pole of com­pe­tence in the desi­gn of elec­tro­nic control actua­tors. It will extend its research and its part­ner­ships asso­cia­ting ques­tions of safe­ty mea­sures, ligh­te­ning of struc­tures and ener­gy sto­rage. It can the­re­by pre­pare and pro­vide ans­wers in the Picar­die Region to the chal­lenges and pro­blems rai­sed by func­tion-inten­sive mate­rials, those of the vehicles for tomor­row and ener­gy pro­duc­tion, nota­bly using wind turbines.

Again, the Chair will call on contri­bu­tions from other research faci­li­ties, in which the UTC Rober­val Labo­ra­to­ries is stron­gly enga­ged: the MS2T Labex (control of tech­no­lo­gy-inten­sive sys­tems of sys­tems) for this theme and mana­ge­ment of uncer­tain­ty and varia­bi­li­ty and for the Rai­le­nium IRT concer­ning model­ling ques­tions in regard to rail wear and deve­lop­ment of soft­ware packages spe­ci­fic to needs of the rail­road sector.

Future prospects for mechanical engineering

The Chair receives finan­cial sup­port from UTC, the Picar­die Regio­nal autho­ri­ties and the EU Regio­nal Deve­lop­ment Fund (FEDER) for an ope­ra­tio­nal bud­get set at 150 k€/yr. The Chair has been plan­ned for an ini­tial 3 years per­iod and, of course, will be able to seek other exter­nal finan­cial contri­bu­tions from the socio-indus­trial world.

In the long term, an inter­na­tio­nal level research trai­ning course will be pro­po­sed, inclu­ding work with UTC part­ners at the Ger­man uni­ver­si­ty of tech­no­lo­gy at TU Braun­sch­weig, the Fin­nish UT Tam­pere and also in France Uni­ver­si­ty of Paris 6 (Pierre & Mari Curie) in the fra­me­work of the Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ties IDEX.

Contacts de la recherche à l'UTC

Pla­quette de la recherche à l'UTC

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L’UTC se MET à l’art

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• Parole de diplô­mé : Nico­las, res­pon­sable sup­ply chain