Prof. dr. ir. Wim van Paepegem

Wim Van Paepegem is full professor in the research group Mechanics of Materials and Structures (UGent-MMS) at Ghent University in Belgium. This research group is part of the Deparment of Materials, Textiles and Chemical Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. The research group counts 30 doctoral and postdoctoral researchers and is led by Wim Van Paepegem. Research in the group is focussed on experimental and computational mechanics of fibre-reinforced composites, polymers, foams and additively manufactured polymers and metals.

Wim is (co-)promotor of various research projects in fatigue, impact and damage mechanics of fibre-reinforced composite materials, and published 200 Science Citation Index (SCI) papers in these research domains. He is mentor and supervisor of 25 defended PhD theses and 15 running PhD theses. He received already 5 personal awards for his academic achievements, including the "Best Young Researcher" award from the European Society for Composite Materials, the UGent Prometheus award for research and the Laureate prize of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and Arts. He is serving as an Editorial Board Member for the SCI-journals "Composites Science and Technology", "Polymer Testing" and "Fatigue and Fracture of Engineering Materials and Structures".

Wim did his own PhD on fatigue of composites (1998-2002) and ever since, has been working on the experimental testing and numerical modelling of fibre-reinforced composites.