Vera Popovich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), Faculty ME at Delft University of Technology. She leading the research group “Materials and Mechanics for Extreme Conditions” and is a coordinator of High-Tech Systems and Materials Platform.  The mission of Popovich’s research group is to gain fundamental knowledge of failure micromechanisms in metallic and ceramic materials under extreme conditions (rate, temperature and environment) and to develop advanced materials pushing boundaries of standard applications. Her group has built up a state-of-the-art mechanical behaviour laboratory with advanced manufacturing research infrastructure including top-notch fracture and fatigue equipment for extreme environments and novel additive manufacturing facilities.

Popovich’s research group and laboratory is working with:

- Fracture and fatigue of complex engineering materials under extreme conditions, which is aimed at identifying fundamental mechanisms of fracture, understanding damage evolution and providing a link to the process and microstructures.

- Mechanical behavior of additively manufactured (AM) materials, which is focused on understanding and control of microstructure and mechanical behavior of additively manufactured materials, as well as development of multifunctional materials through microstructural design and functional grading enabled by 3D-printing process.

In 2019, Vera was awarded a prestigious RSF 1.7 million euro grant to design microstructures and tailor mechanical properties in 3D-printed components aimed at development of an innovative concept for the creation of 4D metallic ma­terials (4D-SMART).

Vera Popovich received two master degrees in materials science from Far Eastern National Technical University (Russia) and Hamburg-Harburg Technical University (Germany).  Vera obtained her PhD degree from TUDelft in 2013 and subsequently joined Materials Innovation Institute (M2i) as a post-doctoral researcher for 3 years.  In 2016 she started as an Assistant professor at TUDelft and in 2020 she was promoted to an Associate Professor. Her research interests extended towards fracture micromechanics and its relation to microstructural features and stress/strain fields of various metallic and ceramic materials manufactured by conventional and 3D-printing processes.

Expertise:

• Fracture and fatigue of materials
• Extreme conditions 
• Functionally graded materials
• Design of materials through additive manufacturing  
• Additively manufactured smart materials
• High and low temperature mechanical properties
• Microstructure-damage evolution
• Hydrogen Embrittlement and degradation 

1. National Growth Fund (NGF), “HyTROS (Hydrogen Transport, Offshore and Storage), Groenvermogen NL”, 2024 - 2028
2. NWO OTP (Open Technology Program), “Multi-Scale Assessment of Liquid Metal Embrittlement at Steel-Zinc Interfaces (MUSCLES)”, 2021- 2025
3. HiTMat 2020, Enabling the Energy and Environmental Transition through Multi Material Design and Additive Manufacturing
4. Materialen NL: Challenges, Designing hydrogen-resistant alloys through novel multi-scale modelling and experimentation (De-Hy), 2020 – 2024
5. Grant “35th cycle” with Politecnico di Milano, Research area: Design of novel alloys for additive manufacturing processes; 2020 – 2024
6. H2020: Application of Functionally Graded Materials to Extra-Large Structures (Grade2XL), 2020-2024 
7. RSF grant, aimed to design microstructures and tailor mechanical properties in metallic 3D-printed components, PI, 2019-2022.
8. European Space Agency (ESA), Ariadna grant, Additive manufacturing of functionally graded ceramics with in-space resources, 2019-2020
9. NWO, TTW-HTM grant, Materials Toughness design through microstructural control, 2018 – 2023.
10. NWO, TTW HTSM grant, Material Science and Synthesis of Extreme Positioning Flexures, 2018 - 2024
11. 3mE cohesion project, Development of next generation gas turbines: transitioning to a green hydrogen economy, 2019-2020

• Dr. Ton Riemslag, support in mechanical behaviour lab
• Elise Reinton, support in mechanical behaviour lab (part-time)
• Raymond Dekker, support in mechanical and thermal behaviour

• Zhaorui Yan, Additive manufacturing of lattice Nitinol structures with tailorable damping properties (together with MT&T), 2021 – present
• José Galán Argumedo, Application of Functionally Graded Materials to Extra-Large Structures (Grade2XL), H2020 project, 2020 - present
• Arjun Sood, Application of Functionally Graded Materials to Extra-Large Structures (Grade2XL), H2020 project, 2020 - present
• Tim Boot, Designing hydrogen-resistant alloys through novel multi-scale modeling and experimentation (De-Hy), 2020 - present
• Ivan Goncharov, (through PoLiMi) Additive Manufacturing of WC ceramics, 2020 - present
• Jaji Chamakura, Materials Science and Synthesis of Extreme Positioning Flexure, 2019 - present
• Jia-Ning Zhu, Development of 4D Smart Metallic Materials produced by Additive Manufacturing, 2019 - 2023
• Virginia Bertolo, (Micro-Tough) Materials Toughness design through microstructural control: experimental approach, 2018 - 2023
• Quanxin Jiang, (Micro-Tough) Materials Toughness design through microstructural control: modelling approach, 2018 - 2023
• Zhaoying Ding, Tailoring the MoSi2 particle and its self-healing behavior in thermal barrier coatings, 2018 – 2024
• Saeede Ghorbanpour, Microstructural Design and Functional Fatigue in 3D-printed Inconel 718, 2018 – 2022

• PhD researcher: Nicolas Macallister, Fatigue of additively manufactured Ti6Al4V

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