Ghent University

Soete Laboratory of GHENT UNIVERSITY (UGent, Belgium) has a longstanding tradition with structural integrity, focusing on fracture mechanics and fatigue. Soete Laboratory is an academic partner with extensive expertise with the experimental evaluation of fracture, ductile failure and fatigue of welded metal components and structures. The laboratory has a range of experimental setups for testing of standardized fracture and fatigue specimens (from 50kN up to 2500kN) and some dedicated setups for specific large scale tests. Soete Laboratory is currently also involved in research projects focusing on the interaction of fretting and fatigue, of fatigue and corrosion and on lifetime prediction of machine components and multimaterial combinations subjected to variable amplitude loading. The developments focus on analytical and numerical fracture mechanics, and advanced measurement techniques for improved interpretation of fracture and fatigue tests. Relevant ongoing projects focusing on corrosion fatigue in marine environments are performed in the frame of the national SIM program (MaDurOS – Material Durability for Off Shore), the EU Interreg 2Seas QUALIFY project and bilateral projects with industrial partners focused on material selection and durability. Soete Laboratory is also an academic partner in a national project on reverse engineering for WAAM optimization, particularly of relevance to the project proposal.