Dr Xiang Zhang has dedicated 30 years of her career to working for the UK universities. She joined Coventry University in 2015 as Professor of Structural Integrity. Prior to this appointment, she worked at Cranfield University as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader (1997-2014); Imperial College London as Research Associate (1990-96).

She obtained aeronautical engineering degrees from the Northwestern Polytechnical University in China (MSc) and Imperial College London (PhD). She is a registered Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS), and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2016, she was awarded the Helmholtz International Fellow.

Her research focuses on materials for applications primarily in the aircraft structures such as lightweight alloys and carbon fibre polymer composites. She has a keen interest in understanding the relationship between manufacturing of structural materials and their performance under the fatigue loads. She has worked on many research projects funded by the UK Research Council, European Research Council, and industry, published over 180 papers, and supervised 18 PhD students to completion. She is currently supervising 10 PhD students.

She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Aerospace Engineering, editorial board member for the Aerospace journal, member of the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Structures and Materials Specialist Group. 

Research Interests: Fatigue and Fracture; Impact Damage; Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites; Light-Weight Metallic Alloys; Additive Manufacturing

Structural Integrity is an important area in the design, manufacture, certification, and operation of engineering products. My mission is to understand the relationship between manufacturing of structural materials and their performance especially under the fatigue load, and to develop analysis models and design tools for safety critical structures. A step change can be made in the structural performance by integrating the advanced materials and innovative manufacturing technologies with novel design solutions.