Michelle Spanjaards is a doctoral candidate in the Polymer Technology group at the Eindhoven University of Technology. She works on finite element modelling of 3D complex extrusion flows. The aim of this project is to predict the extrudate shape of viscoelastic fluids emerging from complex shaped dies with the focus on extrusion of rubber compounds. Her work includes modelling of important rheological properties of filled rubber compounds. The final goal of the project is to be able to optimize the extrusion die to obtain an extrudate with desired dimensions and shape.

Michelle Spanjaards started her study in Mechanical Engineering in 2011 as a bachelor student at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), where she obtained her BSc in 2014. She continued her masters in the Polymer Technology group where she obtained her MSc (with great appreciation) in 2017, working on sedimentation and migration of particles in single-phase and two-phase viscoelastic flows under orthogonal shear, for which she combined experimental and numerical research. Immediately after she started her PhD in the Polymer Technology group under the supervision of her thesis supervisors. During her masters she finished an internship at the University of Technology in Vienna in the structural polymers group.