Sandra Lepak- Kuc, BEng, PhD awarded the prestigious Siemens award!

The 25th edition of the Siemens Contest has finished. The contest takes place on the basis of a contract signed between Warsaw University of Technology and Siemens Sp. z o.o.

The promotional award was granted to Sandra Lepak-Kuc, BEng, PhD, a graduate of our faculty, currently working as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Mechatronics of Warsaw University of Technology.

According to Krzysztof Malinowski, BEng, PhD, DSc, ProfTit, the deputy chairman of the Jury:

Since its creation, the purpose of the Contest was to promote high-quality research papers that are at the same time aimed at the practical results of their implementation.

The distinctly defended thesis of Lepak-Kuc is entitled “Technology of Manufacturing Electric Cables With Doped Fibres Made of Carbon Nanopipes” and it is centered around the important and current topic of innovative carbon power cables.

The young scientist has attempted to clear, dope and hybridize fibers made of carbon nanopipes with graphene. She has conducted extensive laboratory tests and a broad analysis of the results of material research, such as TGA, SEM or Raman spectroscopy, which enable her to understand the mechanisms of doping and hybridizing. This resulted in an improvement of 945% in conductivity of fibres. The resulting improvements in power conductivity represent a significant achievement when compared to other reports in this area, published worldwide in scientific literature.

Lepak-Kuc also presented the technology of manufacturing insulated nanopipe wires. She has conducted a series of tests and created a functioning power insulation adjusted to implementing in electric machinery. The presented method of insulation was manufactured on a large scale, a fact that recent solutions failed to provide. Moreover, she created nanopipe wires that could be implemented in textronics. For this purpose, she insulated the CNT fibres with polymers commonly used in the textile industry, creating a wire that does not differ visually from standard textile materials.

Furthermore, she has devised a procedure for producing a composite fibre with 40% weight content of nanopipes in the polymer. This is eight times greater value than the up-to-date results reported for such composites.

We would like to congratulate Sandra Lepak-Kuc, BEng, PhD. We wish you further fruitful scientific work and many successes, both in professional and private life.

Sandra Lepak-Kuc, BEng, PhD since the beginning of her scientific career has been cooperating with the Faculty of Mechatronics at Warsaw University of Technology. She has conducted research projects in numerous laboratories, including the Laboratory of Technology of Novel Functional Materials, a part of the Centre of New Technologies and at the Institute of Organic Chemistry of Polish Academy of Sciences. She has also gained experience during her work at European institutes, such as the Josef Stefan Institute in Lublana, Slovenia or the Enhanced Composites and Structures Centre at the Cranfield University in the United Kingdom. Her current areas of interest in research are focused on manufacturing functional materials for printed electronics, for biomedical engineering purposes, among others. She is a smiling and cheerful person. She is always keen on undertaking new challenges and she says that the didactic-scientific work gives her much satisfaction.