Akke Suiker
Department / Institute
RESEARCH PROFILE
Professor Suiker leads the group of Applied Mechanics, where the research focuses on the modelling of failure and deformation behaviour of materials and structures relevant for the built environment. Interactions between mechanical processes and other physical processes (thermal, hygral, chemical, fluid flow, magnetic) are studied, and effects observed at various scales of observation, ranging from the micro- to the macro scale, are coherently included in the modelling strategy. For this purpose, the models are required to be thermodynamically consistent, their numerical discretization is performed with robust and accurate schemes, and their applicability is validated by means of advanced laboratory experiments. When possible, the modelling results are translated towards design graphs useful for engineering practice. This should lead to a thorough insight and understanding of practical problems, and to new and better technical solutions. Recent applications relate to 3D printing, historical paintings and furniture, wind energy turbines, sewer systems, granular materials, among others.
The excitement obtained by solving complex technical problems for the built environment starting from basic laws of physics is comparable to that experienced as a 5-year old when unwrapping a Santa Claus present.
ACADEMIC BACKGROUND
Akke Suiker obtained his MSc degree in Civil Engineering (Cum laude, 1995) and his PhD degree in Applied Mechanics (Cum Laude, 2002) at the Delft University of Technology. He had 1-year post-doc visits at the University of Massachusetts, U.S.A. and Cambridge University U.K. Since 2012 he is Full Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology, Department of the Built Environment, leading the group of Applied Mechanics. From 2001-2008 he held the position of Assistant Professor and from 2008-2011 of Associate Professor and acting chair of Computational Mechanics at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology. His research interests relate to micromechanical modeling of failure and deformation of materials and multi-scale and multi-physics modeling of solids. He has published over 80 journal articles in the research fields of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Computational Mechanics, Material Science, and Applied Engineering, and was elected as “Best Lecturer of the Delft University of Technology, 2009-2010”. In addition, he has won 4 awards on graduate teaching excellence and PhD supervision excellence at the Department of the Built Environment of the TU/e. He is a member of editorial boards of scientific journals in the field of Applied Mechanics and has served 4 times as guest editor of Philosophical Magazine (Est. 1798). Several of his journal articles have led to registered patents.
Key Publications
-
A.S.J. Suiker
Mechanical performance of wall structures in 3D printing processes: theory, design tools and experiments
International Journal of Mechanical Sciences (2018) -
Gijs Eumelen,Emanuela Bosco,Akke S.J. Suiker,Annelies van Loon,Piet Iedema
A computational model for chemo-mechanical degradation of historical oil paintings due to metal soap formation
Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (2019) -
Emanuela Bosco,Akke S.J. Suiker,N.A. Fleck
Crack channelling mechanisms in brittle coating systems under moisture or temperature gradients
International Journal of Fracture (2020) -
Zhijun Wang,Akke S.J. Suiker,Herm Hofmeyer,T. van Hooff,Bert Blocken
Coupled aerostructural shape and topology optimization of horizontal-axis wind turbine rotor blades
Energy Conversion and Management (2020) -
J. Liu,E. Bosco,A.S.J. Suiker
Multi-scale modelling of granular materials
Computational Mechanics (2019)
Current Educational Activities
Ancillary Activities
No ancillary activities