Fujia Chen obtained her BEng degree in Textile Engineering, Donghua University (Chinese Textile University), China in and then completed her Masters degree in Composite Material, Aeronautics Engineering of Imperial College London. She has worked on 3D woven composite projects with Airbus, UK, which lead to her first publication on the impact behaviour of composites with different fibre structure (see publications). Her training in composite material science has grounded her well for the focus of her current research: studying the structure and mechanical behaviour of the silkworm cocoon, a model high-performance bio-composite.
A silkworm cocoon is a natural polymer and forms a non-woven structure composite shell made of continuous silk fibres and occasionally hair, sticks and leaves. The fibres are conglutinated by a matrix known as sericin. In nature, there are a number of kinds of cocoons with very different morphology, mechanism and functions for the silkworms. For her project, Fujia looks into the various structures and their individual mechanical behaviour of the cocoon materials, and also works on a quantitative framework to understand the link between the structure and the mechanism of the materials.
She is also a member of SAMPE, UK and the Oxford Polymer Network.
Prof. Fritz Vollrath and colleagues from the Fudan University in China are widely covered in the news for their discovery of a means to produce fake Rhino horns using horse hair. Hopes are that this product may undermine the illegal market for rhino horn, and demistify the properties of rhino horn. View Here
