{"id":2,"date":"2016-11-23T07:06:32","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T07:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-02-23T12:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T10:39:27","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/home\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Page"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Materials, Optimisation and Design (MOD) research group is a part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.su.ac.za\/en\/faculties\/engineering\/departments\/mechanical-mechatronic-engineering\">Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun.ac.za\/english\/faculty\/eng\">Faculty of Engineering<\/a>) at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun.ac.za\/english\/\">Stellenbosch University<\/a>, Western Cape, South Africa and associated with its Mechanics division.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our Focus:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<\/strong><em>Structural analysis and optimisation<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The research group&#8217;s members work on a diverse group of projects related to<em> structural analysis and optimisation.<\/em> The primary goal of which is producing or facilitating advanced engineering design.<\/p>\n<p>Finite element analysis (and other numerical simulations), numerical design optimisation, material characterisation&nbsp;for numerical modelling purposes, meta-modelling, etc. are all of interest. Any application of these are welcome here.<\/p>\n<p>Projects have dealt or are dealing with:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>inflatable structures (inflatable wings, dunnage bags, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>morphing wings\/hydrofoils<\/li>\n<li>soft robotics<\/li>\n<li>large radio astronomy antennas<\/li>\n<li>heart valves<\/li>\n<li>composites<\/li>\n<li>vertical&nbsp;axis wind turbines<\/li>\n<li>particle swarm optimisation<\/li>\n<li>railway bogies<\/li>\n<li>mining truck tires<\/li>\n<li>material testing methods<\/li>\n<li>high-pressure water supply lines<\/li>\n<li>heat exchanger header boxes for industrial heat exchangers, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Study leaders<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All projects are supervised\/co-supervised by <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/collaborate-with-us\/\">Prof G. Venter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/collaborate-with-us\/\">Prof M. Venter<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/collaborate-with-us\/\">Dr. V. Shekhar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/collaborate-with-us\/\">Dr. M. Neaves<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/collaborate-with-us\/\">Mr. JR Bredell<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many students are both associated with the MOD group and another research group at the department or broader faculty.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Group<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The research group&#8217;s shared offices are located deep in the bowels of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sun.ac.za\/english\/faculty\/eng\/mechanical-mechatronic\">Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering&#8217;s<\/a>&nbsp;laboratories.<\/p>\n<p>Typically group meetings are held about every two weeks to allow group members a chance to: practice presenting, discuss papers the group has read\/reviewed, share useful\/interesting information, manage group resources &#8211; and just generally learn from one another.<\/p>\n<p>Several group <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/news-and-gallery\/\">socials<\/a> occur throughout the year.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Materials, Optimisation and Design (MOD) research group is a part of the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (Faculty of Engineering) at Stellenbosch University, Western Cape, South Africa and associated with its Mechanics division. Our Focus:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Structural<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9907,"featured_media":0,"parent":11,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1004,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/1004"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/mod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}