Ninth Postgraduate Experimental Mechanics (PGEM) Workshop

Measurements Lecture

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Plenary Lectures

Dr Fred Cegla, NDE group, Mechanical Engineering Department, Imperial College London

Non-destructive ultrasonic monitoring of stress, strain, temperature and material properties
Ultrasound is one of the key non-destructive measurement modalities that is used to interrogate the inside of opaque media. The most common use of ultrasound is to measure material and geometric properties such as stiffness and thickness, as for example in corrosion mapping. This is widespread and has been successfully applied in industrial applications for many years. Less well known is the sensitivity of ultrasound to temperature and strain. These are usually confounding factors that produces errors in geometric and material property measurements. However, with careful experimentation and additional measurements using e.g. different wave polarisations, the ultrasound can be used itself to measure temperature, temperature gradients and load/strain. This talk will give an overview of how different ultrasonic measurement setups can be configured to non-destructively measure temperature and load/strain in metals.

Dr Calvin M. Stewart, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ohio State University

Materials at Extremes
Materials are being asked to perform at “extremes” where increased inlet pressures and temperatures in aero gas turbines, the rise of hypersonic flight, and new Generation IV fission and ITER Fusion reactor concepts push the limits of what materials are capable of. There is a need to develop advanced manufacturing (AM) techniques to discover new materials and fabricate components, and geometries not possible with conventional techniques. To keep pace with AM, advanced testing methods must be developed to accelerate the qualification of these materials and structures. Finally, advanced theoretical models must be derived that describe the fundamental relationships between chemistry, processing, structure, and performance at extremes.

Materials at Extremes (MATX) focuses on the advanced manufacturing, mechanical testing, and theoretical mechanics of materials subject to thermal, mechanical, and chemical extremes. In this seminar, we will review the ongoing and future research in MATX, and conduct a deep dive into accelerated, parallelized, and miniaturized testing methods for new materials qualification and machine learning for new materials discovery.

Speaker Biography

Special Sessions

Identification of Residual Stresses – Dr Matthew Roy (University of Manchester)
Materials testing 2.0 – Prof Fabrice Pierron (MatchID)
Measurement in demanding environments – Dr Allan Harte (UKAEA)
High-Rate Deformation and Blast Loading – Dr Richard Curry (University of Shefield)
Tribology and contact – Prof Daniel Mulvihill (University of Glasgow)
Soft matter, soft electronics and soft robotics – Prof Ben Xu (Northumbria University)
Biomaterials and Biomechanics – Dr Hari Arora (Swansea University)

Conference Reception
Tuesday 2 September 2025
Eastside Bar, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ

Conference Dinner
Wednesday 3 September 2025
Millennium Hotel and Conference Centre Gloucester London
4-18 Harrington Gardens, South Kensington, London SW7 4LH

EMex25

The BSSM's Exhibition of Experimental Mechanics is the premier UK exhibition for manufacturers and suppliers of strain measurement and stress analysis equipment and will take place over two days on the 2 and 3 September 2025

More about EMex25

Registered Exhibitors

Ametek
Correlated Solutions
LAVision
Photron
Severn Thermal Solutions
Techni Measure
Vishay Measurements Group

Conference Sponsorship 

For more details please complete form here

Strain Best Prize Competition

This annual prize is sponsored by our corporate Member Fylde

Organising Committee

General Conference - Professor Catrin Davis (Imperial College London, UK)
Confco Chair - Dr Ksenija Dvurecenska (University of Liverpool, UK)
Dr Daniel Mulvihill - Chair of BSSM (University of Glasgow, UK) 
Dr Neha Chandarana - Young Stress Analyst Competition Chair (University of Bristol, UK)
Amanda Boaler - Conference Secretariat (BSSM)
Dr Haibao Liu, (Queen Mary University of London, UK)

For further information or queries please contact info@bssm.org

Scientific Committee

Dr Hari Arora, Swansea University, UK
Dr David Asquith, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
Professor Stéphane Avril, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France
Professor Janice Barton, University of Bristol, UK
Professor Thorsten Becker, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Professor Christian Berggreen, DTU, Denmark
Professor Tore Børvik, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
Professor John Bouchard, Open University, UK
Professor Martin Browne, University of Southampton, UK
Dr Neha Chandarana, University of Bristol
Professor John Dear, Imperial College London, UK
Dr Ksenija Dvurecenska (University of Liverpool)
Dr Jevan Furmanski, University of Dayton Research Institute, USA
Dr Kheng-Lim Goh, Newcastle University Singapore Campus, Singapore
Dr Yevgen Gorash, University of Strathclyde, UK
Dr Salih Gungor, Open University, UK
Professor Johan Hoefnagels, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
Dr Mikko Hokka, Tampere University of Technology, Finland
Dr Charchit Kumar, University of Glasgow, UK
Professor Genevieve Langdon, University of Sheffield, UK
Dr Pascal Lava, MatchID, Belgium
Professor Xavier Maldague, Laval University, Canada
Professor James Marrow, University of Oxford, UK
Dr Mahmoud Mostafavi, University of Bristol, UK
Dr Daniel Mulvihill, University of Glasgow, UK
Professor Fabrice Pierron, MatchID
Dr Rachel Tomlinson, University of Sheffield, UK
Professor Gianluca Tozzi, University of Greenwich, UK
Professor Christopher Truman, University of Bristol, UK
Professor Satoru Yoneyama, Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan
Professor Keith Worden, University of Sheffield, UK
Dr Hannah (Huixing) Zhang, National Physical Laboratory, UK

Venue

Information, travel details and booking information to follow

Conference and EMex meeting rooms 

Wonderful atmosphere and open community! Will definitely keep in touch'. Pieter Livens, University of Antwerp, Belgium