Brakes 2016: Enhancing Brake Performance And The Integration Of New Technologies

Mike Blundell: Head of the Vehicle Dynamics and Safety Research Group, Coventry University

Mike Blundell is the Associate Dean Enterprise within the Faculty of Engineering and Computing and is also Professor of Vehicle Dynamics and Impact and the Head of the Vehicle Dynamics and Safety Research Group at Coventry University. He previously worked as a naval architect for the ship and submarine design department of the Ministry of Defence and as a stress engineer for Boeing (Europe).
He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (FIMechE), a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and a Member of the Engineering Professors Council.

Daren Steward: DSA Programmes and Office Management Group Leader, Jaguar Land Rover

Daren Steward joined Rover Group in 1990 straight after graduating from Hatfield Polytechnic with an Engineering Degree and has been at the company that become JLR ever since.  After completing the graduate training scheme, Daren started working within the Chassis department and has focused on brake systems since 1993.  

After working on many vehicles including the MGF, Rover 75, Land Rover Freelander, Range Rover and Jaguar XJ, he became the Technical Specialist for Braking Attributes in 2006.  In this role, he had the task of understanding what the customer desires when they press the brake pedal, from a feel, performance and refinement perspective and from what they expected from the parking systems.  

Since 2015 Daren has been the Group Leader for Deceleration and Stability Attributes (the new name for Braking) Programmes which is the role responsible for managing the delivery of all JLR programmes for this Attribute.

Georgios Tsampardoukas: Frictionless Braking – Research Lead Engineer, Jaguar Land Rover

Georgios Tsampardoukas has more than nine years of experience in the Automotive industry and more than 15+ on software development. Since 2014, Georgios is leading a research in advanced chassis control systems at R&D department in Jaguar Land Rover.

Georgios obtained his MSc on Automotive Engineering in 2003, PhD in vehicle dynamics and chassis control systems in 2007 and MSc in Control Engineering in 2011. Georgios published several research papers in international conferences and journals.

Prior to joining Jaguar Land Rover, Georgios held a position as a post-doctoral researcher in Coventry University in the area of model based embedded software applications and hardware-in-the-loop validation methods.

David Bryant: Lecturer in Automotive Engineering, University of Bradford

David Bryant’s research interests centre on vehicle brakes and braking systems with a specific focus on noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) and braking instabilities. Drawing on regular funding from automotive OEMs, the work has gained international recognition with the publication of several conference papers and journal articles.

Projects have directly impacted on vehicle design and production and have embedded an understanding of complex problems. Knowledge Transfer interests focus on the running of the Braking of Road Vehicles short course for industry.

Roy Harrison: Professor of Environmental Health, University of Birmingham

Roy Harrison is Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham, UK, and also Distinguished Adjunct Professor at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. His research interests are in air pollution, especially airborne particulate matter.  

He has also been heavily engaged at the science/policy interface as a member of several government technical advisory groups for the Department of Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the U.K. including until recently membership of Defra’s Science Advisory Council.  

He was a contributor to the World Health Organization Global Air Quality Guidelines and the Guidelines for Quality of Indoor Air. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2004 New Year Honours List.  He is author of almost 500 papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and is listed by ISI as a Highly Cited Researcher.

Allan Johnstone: Senior Project Engineer, Honda R&D Europe

Allan Johnstone has been working on braking systems for Honda since 1998. In that time he has worked on several research projects and developed several demonstration braking systems to deliver European brake feel. In developing the brake systems he has established  methodologies to understanding, evaluating and quantifying brake feeling, which been adopted world wide within Honda.

Prior to working for Honda, Allan worked for Dennis Specialist Vehicles (DVS) with responsibility for braking system for fire engines and buses from pre build through to type approval. Before working at DSV, Allan worked as a development engineer for Terex Equipment where he worked on a prototype braking system for heavy duty dump trucks. 

Over these years Allan has developed a passion to understand and produce brake feeling that exceeds the customer expectations.

Daniele Poletto: Principal Brake Systems Engineer, McLaren Automotive

Daniele Poletto graduated in Mechanical engineering at the University of Padova in 2004, receiving a Master Degree in Vehicle Engineering in 2006 at the University of Modena. During the master, he joined as stageur Ducati Corse in the Vehicle Dynamics team working with the set up and tyre performance tooling for MotoGP project. 

In 2006, Daniele joined Ferrari Gran Turismo in the Reliability and Durability department as Performance Engineer supporting the definition of durability methodology and targets for all mechanical systems for the 599, California and 458 projects. 

In 2008 his role changed to Vehicle Development engineer for the 599GTO project being involved in the development of the brake systems, dynamics, NVH and Vehcile performance. 
In 2011 he was Senior Engineer responsible for the mechanical and hybrid systems performance and development of the F12 and LaFerrari.

Daniele joined McLaren automotive in 2014 as Senior Development engineer for Super Series and in 2016 was nominated Principal Engineer for Brakes Systems being responsible for concept, design and development for all McLaren projects.

Stamatis Angelinas: Chassis Engineer - Brake Actuation & Performance Planning, Bentley

Stamatis Angelinas has been at Bentley for 3.5 years, initially responsible for Foundation Brake components sizing, testing and supplier management for Iron and CSiC-based brake systems. He currently works on Hybrid Brake Actuation systems within the design team leading Regenerative/ Frictionless Braking strategy development, and is also responsible for tuning and delivery activities of electro-mechanical brake boosters into upcoming projects. 

Stamatis obtained his BEng in Mechanical Engineering at Plymouth University in 2007, and MSc in Automotive Engineering at Cranfield University in 2009. 

He completed a PhD in Automotive Engineering at Cranfield University in 2013, specialising in High-Performance Friction Brake Systems, where he developed advanced modelling strategies for composite disc brake materials, using Genetic Algorithms for thermo-mechanical loading optimisation, and Computational Fluid Dynamics for cooling performance optimisation.

Dr. Nils Wagner: Senior Engineer, INTES GmbH

Nils Wagner graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Brunswick - Institute of Technology.

His diploma thesis was carried out in conjunction with the University of Innsbruck, in the area of random response of rotating systems. He then successfully completed a PhD at TU Braunschweig, but at the faculty of Civil Engineering, focusing his attention on a coupled FEM/BEM analysis method of a moving mass problem.

In 1999, Nils moved to the faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Stuttgart as a Post-Doc. Prior to his industrial activities, Nils held a position as a post-doctoral researcher in University of Stuttgart in the area of parameter-dependent eigenvalue problems.

Moving from Academia to Industry, he is currently working for INTES GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany as a senior engineer, responsible for trainings, benchmarks and conference contributions in all aspects of CAE by using the commercial FEA package PERMAS and the corresponding pre- and postprocessor VisPER with emphasis on structural dynamics and optimization.