Beukers is a full-time professor of Composite Materials and Structures at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the Delft University of Technology, and a part-time professor for Engineering with Composites at the Materials Department of the Catholic Leuven University. He is also former director of research and development strategies at the Centre for Lightweight Structures. 

 

Beukers’ approach to materials and structures development highlights the importance of using minimum material and energy to achieve the optimum physical and mechanical properties possible in a structure. As an author of the book ‘Lightness’ (1998) and ‘Flying Lightness’ (2005), he advocates the study of nature’s organic structures as an inspiration for the development of man-made polymeric materials, which can be shaped, reinforced and pre-tensioned.

 

The lecture will focus on the concept that every building material, object, or structure, which is moving, being moved and assembled, suffers gravity. Both the manufacturing, mass and transportation history do have a pay off regarding energy use and greenhouse gasses emission. In addition to aesthetics and functionality, the important added values, which make a ‘design’ successful, are intrinsic values like high structure efficiency combined with good thermal and acoustic isolating properties (performance per unit mass and cost). At the end, those values are the key factors of how much costumers are willing to pay for transport or manufacturing at distance. Products, from leisure to packaging, from tapestry to building elements, from advanced roof structures to structural cladding for tall buildings.