#ShareYourPassion : Louise, a PhD student awarded in a scientific contest

At the beginning of my higher education, I had only one certainty: I wanted to work in industry to be as close as possible to the material. So I went for a "Physics, Technology and Engineering Sciences" degree that offered as much physics and maths as engineering sciences. Then, I joined the ISAE ENSMA in Poitiers (France), a generalist school with a focus on aerospace.

At the beginning, I didn't know which industry to work for. But I had a colleague from prep school who was an aviation enthusiast, and he aroused my curiosity on the subject. The application of materials sciences to aerospace was of particular interest to me. I wanted to know how a plane flies... Today I have the answer, and I'm really not disappointed to have specialized in this field!

In 3rd year, I had the opportunity to participate in a research project in collaboration with Safran Aircraft Engines. I had found my way: I wanted to become a metallurgical engineer. But to do so, you had to have completed a thesis... So I took the plunge!

My thesis focuses on the "Recrystallization of monocrystalline metallic materials ".

Usually, metals are composed of grains welded together by "grain boundaries". The problem is that these grain boundaries reduce the mechanical properties of the part. To get rid of this, we use "monocrystalline" materials, parts made of a single grain. It is a unique know-how that goes through state-of-the-art foundry processes. However, it happens that some grains resist these treatments. This is called "recrystallization." The objective of my thesis is to understand what generates recrystallization in order to find out how to avoid this phenomenon.

As part of the development of Safran Aircraft Engine’s future programs, we are looking at optimizing the performance of the hot sections of the engine in order to gain power while containing the size and the fuel consumption of the engine. The use of monocrystalline materials is one of the solutions to achieve those improvements.

The state of mind was very positive. We were eight selected to present our thesis in front of the other doctoral students and the atmosphere was more that of a time of meeting and exchange than that of a competition… And I got the 2^nd prize! It was very rewarding, because I worked a lot on my presentations and my speech, and the level of the other PhD students was very high! So I was selected for the SAMPE Europe contest which took place in Belfast from September 23 to 26, and which brought together around twenty competitors from all over Europe.

I found the same very human spirit as at the SAMPE France contest. We all met before the competition, exchanged ideas on our work and thesis experiences... On the other hand, the hardest part was presenting my thesis in English, especially as I was talking to native English speakers!

During the first two days, we presented our theses to the other students and to a jury drawn from industry and academia... The next day, the results came in, and surprise: I got an “honorable mention” for my thesis work, just behind another French, who had also won first prize at the SAMPE France contest! I'm pretty proud of this result, and happy to have succeeded in bringing the jury into my world with this subject on advanced metallurgy.

Of course I did! The conference was taking place in the famous Titanic Museum. So we were given a private tour, which was very interesting. We also had the opportunity to discover a few pubs with live music, other emblematic places of tourism in Ireland!

The next step will be to take part in the SAMPE France network technical days at the end of November. This will give me another opportunity to present my thesis - in French this time – and to visit the Safran Nacelles site in Le Havre!

I've loved tinkering since I was little, and in particular "upcycling" furniture, creating new furniture from old material. The main difficulty with this activity is that it requires equipment and tools, a lot of tools! So I build up my workshop little by little... In the end, there is a fairly direct link with my job. Whether it's at home with a saw or at work with a microscope, what I like is to be in touch with the material.

The SAMPE (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering) is an international association whose objective is to strengthen the links between the academic and the industrial world through various forums and publications for scientists, engineers and academics.

Each year, as part of its "Student Conferences", it organises a Europe-wide competition focusing on thesis work on structural materials (composite, metallic or ceramic) as well as their development and implementation methods.