UPB is the most largest technical university in Romania. Its traditions are connected to the founding of the first higher technical school in 1818. Thus, by a Royal Edict, the premises of Saint Sava Abbey were converted into the new school. Currently, there are more than 20 thousand students, and around 3000 professors, studying and working in 11 faculties and over 50 departments. UPB pays a special attention to bilateral co-operation agreements (around 85 accords in July 2000) with similar universities, mainly from Europe or United States. UPB participates in many scholarly European programs such as TEMPUS, SOCRATES (ERASMUS), TEMPRA or LEONARDO. Also, UPB is an active participant to projects such as COPERNICUS, PECO, FIFTH and SIXTH FRAMEWORK; the World Bank has supported many research and development plans in UPB.

Effort is dedicated towards co-operation with other research centers and interested partners from industry in refining numerical and experimental modeling, NDT, and failure criteria, in order to obtain competitive products. The Laboratory for Integrity Evaluation of Composite Structures focuses on numerical and experimental modeling of layered composite materials under various loading and environmental conditions; non-linear analysis; damage monitoring and assessment of structural integrity; in-service lifetime estimation; interface and inter-phase fracture; exploring NDT methods for laboratory and in situ investigations as well as structural damage identification through NDE.

Reasons for Participating
The research for these work packages will be carried out in the Laboratory for Integrity Evaluation of Composite Structures at UPB. Staff at the centre has considerable expertise in the fields of wave analysis, ultrasonics, thermography and also automation for NDE inspection, these skills will be used to support the SME partners in the project. This project fulfils UPB's strategic aim of increasing their activities in the growing composite inspection market. UPB was chosen by the SMEs due to its NDE facilities, personnel experience and competitively priced research bid. The UPB representative leading the project will be Prof. Dr Constantin who is an internationally authority in the field of NDE with over 100 publications plus experience of working on several successful EU projects. Colleagues at the central laboratory of thermal optical storage will be specifically used for their expertise in the thermography and lamb wave field having written several papers involving the use of lamb wave analysis and Thermographic inspection using a sonic stressing mechanism.

Role in the project
UPB will be mainly involved in the following work packages at the request of the SMEs: WP-A, production of calibration blocks with defects representing those typically found in GRP components; WP-D, development of an infra-red thermography system and WP-G Laboratory and field trials for the entire suite of inspection systems.