Team Website

Declercq and his team specialise in experimental and theoretical/numerical work. The laboratory promotes and enhances environmental consciousness through interdisciplinary research with immediate industrial applications for new materials' Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE). It is well known for ultrasonic NDE using a wide range of frequencies from 0.5 MHz up to 2 GHz, for linear and nonlinear acoustics, contact, air-coupled, and immersion investigations, and for performing scans at normal incidence or multiple angles. NDE is performed on traditional materials, new composites, solar panels, and periodic structures such as phononic crystals (PCs), also known as metamaterials.

The global goal is to understand the physics of the interaction of sound and ultrasound with materials aiming at the nondestructive evaluation of materials. Studies involve the diffraction of sound at periodical structures (phononic crystals, staircases, periodically corrugated surfaces and interfaces, multi-layered materials, acoustic barriers) and sound interaction with fibre-reinforced composites and other anisotropic materials. In addition, medical applications such as blood, the Descemet membrane of the human eye and other biological materials are examined.

One of the objectives is to understand complex situations where different phenomena coincide. Together with a robotics team, NDE of large structures, such as ship hulls, is also undertaken.

Education

  • Ph.D., Eng. Physics, Ghent University, Belgium, 2005
  • M.Sc., Physics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), Belgium, 2000
  • B.Sc., Physics, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KULAK), Belgium, 1996

Background

Dr. Declercq began at Tech in 2006 as an Assistant Professor. Prior, he was with Ghent University as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Belgian National Science Foundation. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012 and to Full Professor in 2022.

Research

  • Acoustics and Dynamics; Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation, physical acoustics, acousto-optics, materials characterization, acoustic microscopy and phononic crystals

  • 2022: Physics Professor Honoris Causa of the University of Allahabad, India
  • 2021: Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Summer 2021 CIOS Honor Roll, College of Engineering, Georgia Tech, Atlanta.
  • 2019: Guest of Honour and Inaugurator of the new Aryabhatt auditorium of the Veer Bahadur Singh Purvanchal University (VBSPU), with "The World-Renowned Scientist Prof. Dr Nico Declercq – France" engraved in the granite commemoration plaque at the entrance, Jaunpur, India.
  • 2013: Best Student Paper Award in Engineering Acoustics, 2013 Montreal International Congress on Acoustics, Montreal, Canada. (IV.C.d 43)
  • 2012: First prize for PhD thesis, contest of L'association des jeunes chercheurs de Franche-Comté - The Society for Young Researchers of Franche-Comté (V.B1.a.5).
  • 2009: World Technology Award Finalist, Materials Division, New York, USA.
  • 2008: Award of recognition "for the brilliant activity in organizing the conference, XI International Conference for Young Researchers in Wave Electronics and its Applications in Information and Telecommunication Systems", St Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation St Petersburg, Russia
  • 2007: ICA Early Career Award, "For outstanding contributions to ultrasonics, particularly for studies of propagation and diffraction of acoustic waves", International Commission for Acoustics, Madrid, Spain.
  • 2007: R. W. B. Stephens Student Prize, International Congress on Ultrasonics, Vienna, Austria. 
  • 2006: International Dennis Gabor Award, Hungarian Parliament, Budapest, Hungary.
  • 2005: Postdoctoral Research Grant, Belgium’s National Science Foundation (FWO).
  • 2004: J. L. Lions Award to Young Scientists in Computational Mathematics, 5th place, The European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences, Finland.
  • 2002: Physical Acoustics Best Student Paper Award, 144th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Cancun, Mexico. (IV.C.c.5) 
  • 2001: PhD Grant, IWT Flanders’ Institute for the Promotion of Innovation through Science and Technology.

Representative Publications

  • Othmane-Latif Ouabi, Pascal Pomarede, Nico F. Declercq, Neil Zeghidour, Matthieu Geist, Cédric Pradalier, “Learning the Propagation Properties of Plate-like Structures for Lamb Wave-based Mapping”, Ultrasonics 123, 106705, 2022.
  • Ouabi, O. L. , Pomarede, P., Zeghidour, N., Geist, M., Declercq, N., and Pradalier, C. Combined Grid and Feature-based Mapping of Metal Structures with Ultrasonic Guided Waves. Peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). (pp. 5056-5062). IEEE. 2022.
  • Othmane-Latif Ouabi, Jiawei Yi, Neil Zeghidour, Nico F. Declercq, Matthieu Geist, Cédric Pradalier, “Polygonal Shapes Reconstruction from Acoustic Echoes Using a Mobile Sensor and Beamforming”. Peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO). 2022.”
  • Ayoub Ridani, Othmane-Latif Ouabi, Nico F Declercq, Cédric Pradalier, "On-plate autonomous exploration for an inspection robot using ultrasonic guided waves", Peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR). IEEE. 2021.
  • Min Zhai, Esam T. Ahmed Mohamed, Alexandre Locquet, G. Schneider, R. Kalmar, M. Fendler, N.F. Declercq, D. S. Citrin, “Diagnosis of injection-molded weld lines in ABS thermoplastic by polarized terahertz reflecting imaging”, NDT & E International 122, 102497, 2021.
  • Othmane-Latif Ouabi, Pascal Pomarede, Matthieu Geist, Nico F. Declercq, Cedric Pradalier, “A FastSLAM Approach Integrating Beamforming Maps for Ultrasound-based Robotic Inspection of Metal Structures”, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 6(2), 2908-2913, 2021.
  • Jan Dirk Heyns, Esam T. Ahmed Mohamed, Nico F. Declercq, “Non-Linear ultrasonic and viscoelastic properties of gelatine investigated in the temperature range 300 C-600 C”, Physics of Fluids 33, 022002, 2021.
  • N. Miqoi, P. Pomarede, N. F. Declercq, L. Guillaumat, G. Le Coz, S. Delalande , F. Meraghni , “Detection and evaluation of barely visible impact damage in woven glass fabric reinforced polyamide 6.6/6 using ultrasonic imaging, X-ray tomography and optical profilometry”, International Journal of Damage Mechanics 30(3), 323-348, 2021.
  • Ouabi, O. L. , Pomarede, P., Geist, M., Declercq, N. F., and Pradalier, C. Monte-Carlo Localization on Metal Plates Based on Ultrasonic Guided Waves. Peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (pp. 345-353). Springer, Cham. 2020.
  • Esam T. Ahmed Mohamed, Min Zhai, G. Schneider, R. Kalmar, M. Fendler, Alexandre Locquet, D. S. Citrin, N. F. Declercq, “Scanning acoustic microscopy investigation of weld lines in injection-molded parts manufactured from industrial thermoplastic polymer”, Micron 138, 102925, 2020.
  • E. T. Ahmed Mohamed, and N. F. Declercq, “Giga-Hertz ultrasonic microscopy: Getting over the obscurity: A review on the biomedical applications”, Physics in Medicine, 9, 100025, 2020.
  • Nico F. Declercq, Esam T. Ahmed Mohamed, Pascal Pomarede, Nada Miqoi, Fodil Meraghni, Jean-Marc Perone, “Ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation of biological and industrial tissues”, Ultrasonics and Materials Science for Advanced Technology, G. Mishra, P. K. Dhawan, M. K. Gupta, D. Singh editors, Narosa Publishing House (New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkota), ISBN 978-81-8487-703-8, p 2-5 (2020)
  • Pascal Pomarede, Lynda Chehami, Nico Felicien Declercq, Fodil Meraghni, Junliang Dong, Alexandre Locquet, D. S. Citrin, “Application of Ultrasonic Coda Wave Interferometry for Micro-cracks Monitoring in Woven Fabric Composites”, Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation, Springer Verlag, 38 (1), pp.26-34, 2019.
  • Jingfei Liu, Nico F. Declercq, “New Perspectives on the Physical Origin of Acoustic Wood Anomalies”, Acta Acustica united with Acustica, Hirzel Verlag, 2019, 105 (2), pp.265-272.
  • Laurence Mathieu, Anaïs Keraval, Nico F. Declercq, Jean-Claude Block, “Assessment of low-frequency ultrasound device on prevention of biofilm formation and carbonate deposition in drinking water systems”, Ultrasonics – Sonochemistry 52, 41-49, 2019.
  • Esam T. Ahmed Mohamed, Jean-Marc Perone, Sebastian Brand, Michael Koegel, Nico F. Declercq, “Scanning acoustic microscopy comparison of Descemet’s membrane normal tissue and tissue with Fuchs endothelial dystrophy (FECD)”, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (IOVS), 59, 5627-5632, 2018.
  • Junliang Dong, Pascal Pomarede, Lynda Chehami, Alexandre Locquet, Fodil Meraghni, Nico F. Declercq, D. S. Citrin, “Visualization of subsurface damage in woven carbon fiber-reinforced composites using polarization-sensitive terahertz imaging”, NDT and E International 99, 72-79, 2018.
  • Pascal Pomarède, Fodil Meraghni, Laurent Peltier, Stéphane Delalande, Nico F. Declercq, “Damage evaluation in woven glass reinforced polyamide 6.6/6 composites using ultrasound phase-shift analysis and X-Ray tomography”, Journal of Nondestructive Evaluation 73(12), 1-21, 2018.
  • Nico F. Declercq, Lynda Chehami, Rayisa P. Moiseyenko, “The transmission spectrum of sound through a phononic crystal subjected to liquid flow”, Applied Physics Letters 112, 024102, 1-4, 2018.
  • Slah Yaacoibi, Lynda Chehami, Marwen Aouini, Nico F. Declercq, “Ultrasonic guided waves for reinforced plastics safety”, Reinforced Plastics (Elsevier) 61(2), 87-91, 2017.
  • Slah Yaacoubi, Peter McKeon, Weina Ke, Nico F. Declercq, Fethi Dahmene, “Towards an Ultrasonic Guided Wave Procedure for Health Monitoring of Composite Vessels: Application to Hydrogen-Powered Aircraft”, Materials 2017, 10, 1097, 2017.
  • Jingfei Liu and Nico F. Declercq, “Acoustic Wood anomaly in transmitted diffraction field”, Journal of Applied Physics 121(11), 114902, 2017.
  • Declercq N. F., “2015 ICU International Congress on Ultrasonics Abstract Book, Metz, France”, editor, 318 pages (2015).
  • P.C. Mishra, Rajendra Kumar Singh, Sri Singh, Nico F. Declercq, editors, “Ultrasonics”, MacMillan Publishers India Ltd, New Delhi, ISBN 10: 0230-63689-8, ISBN 13: 978-0230-63689-7, 533 pages. (2008).