Hawkins is delighted to welcome Virginie Landais to our expanding team of materials experts. Virginie brings extensive experience in materials characterisation, particularly degradation and failure mechanisms.
Virginie began her career in a US federal research centre where she monitored the ageing of ballistic polymer fibres using FTIR (Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy) and carried out tensile and ballistic testing.
Virginie then moved to Airbus UK where she investigated the failure of various aircraft components. This ranged from ‘in-service’ failure analysis of large-scale corroded components to the fatigue analysis of test parts, including metallurgical and fractographic examination. She enrolled in a PhD program to further her expertise within this field, studying the environmentally-assisted failure of high-strength aerospace aluminium alloys. This involved the multiscale characterisation of brittle fractures, using a combination of three techniques: X-ray tomography, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and- glow-discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES).
Shortly after this, Virginie joined Bentley to examine the degradation of a wide range of organic and inorganic materials. This included failure investigation of parts from customers’ vehicles or the production line. This assisted new component development, by advising engineers on materials selection, corrosion protection methods, and by testing different coatings, plantings, and adhesives.
Virginie is also a member of the External Advisory Board for the University of Manchester, where she advises the Department of Materials on their curriculum, research and mentoring of students.
Virginie joins as an Associate based in our Manchester office.
