"Welcome aboard flight MT180" with Déborah Faucon
Déborah Faucon is a third-year PhD student at the University of Montpellier'sInstitute of Electronics and Systems (IES). On May 28, she won the jury prize in the regional final of the "Ma thèse en 180 secondes "(#MT180) competition organized by the Collège doctoral. A 2020 edition marked by the imperatives of confinement. Portrait of a high-flying doctoral student.
Déborah Faucon's specialty? Metal. But not just any metal, the kind used to make airplanes and even more, the kind used to make door frames for the Airbus A350: titanium! A material which, to be exploited, has to be heated and then beaten " like bread dough ", explains the doctoral student. It's an efficient process, but it can also lead to the formation of small defects within the part itself, accelerating wear.
But aviophobes needn't worry about these defects. Déborah makes them her business and, using ultrasound, she tracks them down, detects and locates them: " It's exactly the same process as for an ultrasound scan. I send an ultrasound signal into the metal sample, recover the signal reflected in the material and post-process it with digital systems using algorithms. " While the use of ultrasound is not new to metallurgy, Déborah Faucon's work is innovative in terms of the nature of the defects detected: " I'm not looking for air bubbles, but for large grains ; yet there are very few ultrasound approaches to assessing the microstructural behavior of metals."
From chemistry to metallurgy
She is working on her thesis with one foot, or rather one wing, in the university and the other in the metallurgy company Aubert&Duval. A good compromise for this young woman with an atypical background: " After a DUT and a bachelor's degree in chemistry in England, I decided to do a master's in materials engineering in Toulouse, my home town. On completion of her master's degree, the Toulouse native began to modify her flight plan to enter the aeronautical world and join Airbus: " I was hired as a temp and stayed for a year and a half. It was a fairly robust job where we observed large aircraft parts to understand the origin of the breakage."
This experience introduced Déborah to non-destructive testing and raised a number of specific issues. She then saw a possible thesis subject that would take her away from chemistry and bring her closer to physical metallurgy. "It just so happened that it correlated with a proposal from Aubert&Duval, so I took off. It' s true that my time at Airbus changed my profile, but chemistry continues to help me understand the characteristics of metal."
A confined competition
His taste for a challenge was also a factor in his application to take part in the regional final of the MT180 competition. This year's final was organized under special conditions, as the thirteen candidates had to perform from their homes, facing the camera on their mobile phones. " It was a tough test. I practiced in front of the mirror and sent the videos to my colleagues and the other candidates for feedback. We had to adapt the text that was intended for the stage and try to make it as lively as possible, but making a speech in front of a camera when there's no audience is a bit bland and frustrating."
Déborah Faucon is hoping to take her revenge for this frustration if health conditions allow a national final to be held on stage and in public . I'm coming to the end of my thesis, with a competition to boot. It's important for me to showcase my activities and those of my laboratory, and I'm really looking forward to seeing live how my text is received by the public ". While the take-off date of this long-haul MT180 flight is still unknown, one thing is certain: the entire University of Montpellier will be in the cabin to applaud her!