Contact Dr Wenli Liu
- Tel: +44 (0) 1234 758290
- Email: wenli.liu@cranfield.ac.uk
Areas of expertise
- Aerospace Structures
- Composites
- Aerospace Materials
- Structures and Materials
Background
Dr Wenli Liu is a Lecturer in Structural Integrity and Design, and, in addition to being a highly qualified academic, she has gained practical research and design experience in the aircraft industry over the past 20 years.
In 1993, after obtaining her first degree in Aircraft Structures from the Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU), Xi’an, China, she was recruited to work for five years as a Stress Engineer for the Chinese National Aircraft Structural Strength Institute. She then returned to university to complete two higher degrees: her MSc in Aircraft Design in 2001 from NPU, Xi’an, China, and in 2005 her PhD in Aerospace Composite Structures from the University of Bath, in the UK.
Wenli successfully received funding by the EPSRC as a post-doctoral researcher working on optimisation, manufacture and damage tolerance analysis of novel composites for aircraft application (2005-2007 and 2010-2013). Airbus funded her for two years secondment (2007-2009) at their Filton industrial site to develop an integrated design method for whole composite aircraft wing layout.
Dr Liu’s main research interests include Finite Element modelling of composite structures and failure, structural optimisation, automated fibre placement and tow steering, buckling and postbuckling of stiffened wing panels and fuselage.
Current activities
- Tow Steering
- Wing Structural Optimisation
- Delamination
- Finite Element Modelling
- Compression After Impact
- Progessive Failure
- XFEM
Clients
- Airbus
- GKN
- AgustaWestland
Publications
Articles In Journals
- Dang TD, Hallet SR, Kim BC, Le Cahain Y, Butler R & Liu W (2015) Modelling of as manufactured geometry for prediction of impact and compression after impact behaviour of variable angle tow laminates, Journal of Composite Materials, 49 (12) 1423-1438.
- Liu W & Butler R (2013) Buckling optimization of variable-angle-tow panels using the infinite-strip method, AIAA Journal, 51 (6) 1442-1449.
- Butler R, Rhead AT, Liu W & Kontis N (2012) Compressive strength of delaminated aerospace composites., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 370 (1965) 1759-1779.
- Rhead AT, Butler R, Liu W & Baker N (2012) The influence of surface ply fibre angle on the compressive strength of composite laminates containing delamination, Aeronautical Journal -New Series-, 116 (1186) 1315-1330.
- Liu W, Butler R & Kim HA (2008) Optimization of composite stiffened panels subject to compression and lateral pressure using a bi-level approach, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, 36 (3) 235-245.
- Liu W, Butler R, Mileham AR & Green AJ (2006) Bilevel optimization and postbuckling of highly strained composite stiffened panels, AIAA Journal, 44 (11) 2562-2570.
Conference Papers
- Liu L, Liu W & Guo S (2022) Experimental and numerical analysis of post-buckling delamination of composite plate under fatigue loads. In: 20th European Conference on Composite Materials: Composites Meet Sustainability, ECCM 2022, Lausanne, 26-30 June 2022.
- Jones E & Liu W (2017) Effect of core materials on compression after impact strength of composite sandwich panels subject to low velocity impact damage. In: 21st International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM21), Xi’an, 20-25 August 2017.
- Xu F, Liu W & Irving PE (2017) Fatigue life and failure of impact-damaged carbon fibre composites under compressive cyclic loads. In: 21st International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM21), Xi’an, 20-25 August 2017.
- Liu W (2014) Optimised stiffened composite panels of variable fibre tows. In: 4th Aircraft Structural Design Conference, Belfast, 7-9 October 2014.
- Butler R, Baker N & Liu W (2009) Damage tolerance of buckling optimized variable angle tow panels. In: 50th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference, 2009, Palm Springs, CA, 4-7 May 2009.
- Liu W & Butler R (2007) Optimum buckling design of composite wing cover panels with manufacturing constraints. In: 48th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2007, Honolulu, Hawaii, 23-26 April 2007.
- Liu W, Butler R, Mileham AR & Green AJ (2005)
Optimum design, experimental testing and post-buckling analysis of thick composite stiffened panels
. In: 46th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference, 2005, Austin, TX, 18-21 April 2005.
