EDML (edml.uniwa.gr/en) calls for PhD candidates on the following research areas:
- Pressure Stimulated Currents and Acoustic Emissions on the study of structural integrity of materials and structural members. Professor Ilias Stavrakas
- Electrical and optical properties of ionic liquids, Assoc. Prof. K. Moutzouris
The call will be in agreement and follow the PhD regulations of the Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Eng. (http://eee.uniwa.gr/el/spoudes/didaktorikes-spoudes) of the University of West Attica.
There are no tuition fees required for this PhD project.
There is currently no available funding to cover the living expenses of the PhD candidate. However, he/she will be encouraged and supported to apply for an external scholarship.
Summary of doctoral thesis #1:
The necessity of monitoring structural integrity of infrastructures is known and of vital importance. Furthermore it is noted that the available technologies for the estimation of structural integrity face three main inhibitory factors:
- High cost of monitoring equipment
- The well-established technologies mainly focus at the surface damages that most of the times are detected only when the infrastructure has no more capacity of load strength.
- When dealing with monuments the access and intervene on the monument surfaces is most of the times not allowed.
During the proposed research, laboratory measurements will be conducted by the aid of novel innovative experimental protocols (i.e. Pressure Stimulated Currents, Acoustic Emissions, Digital Image Correlation, Ultra High Speed Camera etc). For the very first time an attempt will be conducted for the spatiotemporal estimation of the damage development in large structural members. The main aim is the detection of potential damage indices that will be used as failure precursors.
1 PhD candidate
Language: Greek / English
Summary of doctoral thesis #2:
Ionic liquids (ILs) are salts with poorly coordinated ions, so that their melting point rests below 100 °C or even below room temperature. A vast number of ILs can be synthesized by proper combination of various cations and anions, enabling the fine tuning of their physical properties, so as to fit the needs of specific applications. Accounting also for their low-volatility and low-toxicity, ILs are “green” “designer” solvents at the forefront of research interest.
The PhD candidate will perform experimental work towards the optical and electrical characterisation of selected families of ILs, by use of prism-coupling refractometry and dielectric spectroscopy techniques. This project is expected to produce important results for numerous applications of ILs in the fields of optofluidics and energy storage, as well as for better understanding the correlation between their macroscopic properties and their molecular structure. Part of the doctoral study will take place at the University of Pisa, Italy, where the candidate will be trained on the synthesis and ab initio modelling of IL’s.
1 PhD candidate
Language: Greek / English