Composites: Rapid Industrialisation and Best Practice

Dr Christophe Pinna: Senior Lecturer, University of Sheffield

Dr Christophe Pinna is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sheffield and a member of AMSTAC since 2014. He obtained his PhD from Ecole Polytechnique in France in 1997 and joined the University of Sheffield in 1998. His research focuses on both metals and composites. He has applied Experimental and Computational Mechanics to the areas of Fatigue, Damage, Fracture, thermomechanical processing of metals and machining. He has over 100 publications. More details can be found at www.sheffield.ac.uk/mecheng/staff/cpinna2.

Dr Paul Fromme: Senior Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London

Paul Fromme joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering as a Lecturer in 2003. He had worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London after completing his PhD at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Paul Fromme's research interests lie in the application of ultrasonic waves for nondestructive testing and structural integrity monitoring. The main focus of his research has been the experimental, numerical, and analytical study of the propagation and scattering characteristics of guided waves in plates. In collaboration with an aerospace company, he studied the interaction of guided waves with fatigue cracks at fastener holes in aircraft fuselages.

In collaboration with other UK universities, he investigated the possibility of applying guided waves, array, and distributed sensors technology for the permanent structural integrity monitoring of oil and rail industry structures. Paul is currently working on further applications of ultrasound, including biomedical testing and signal processing.

Paul Gallen: Sector Lead - Automotive, National Composites Centre UK

Paul Gallen is the National Composites Centre’s (NCC’s) lead for the automotive market within the Strategy and Business Development Team, with over 20 years’ management level leadership of industrialising new technologies, facilitating technology transfer and supporting advanced manufacturing in the UK. He is currently developing sector roadmaps, future programmes and support requirements for UK automotive lightweighting, working with industry leadership groups. This involves working with OEMS and Tier 1 companies to define requirements and future capabilities.

Paul brings extensive experience of facilitating new product development as well as leading industrial-scale rollouts of new manufacturing technologies. Paul’s recent projects include the setting up of pilot plants for high volume manufacture of composite components and development of new IPR through collaborative R&D.

Robin Hardi: Manufacturing Technology Integrator, Airbus UK

Robin Hardi is a Manufacturing Engineering Manager at Airbus UK Broughton with 29 years' experience of metallic and composite wing manufacture. He is currently working on manufacturing technology development, and has previously managed projects on the A380 wing equipping and A350 wingbox assembly manufacturing system introduction.

Rob Backhouse: Engineering Specialist and Global Process Owner - Organic Matrix Composites, Rolls-Royce

Rob Backhouse is the Global Process Owner and Engineering Specialist for polymer composites at Rolls-Royce and formerly Senior Composites Engineer at McLaren Automotive. In his current role, Rob provides technical guidance to all sectors of the business and holds responsibility for the development of the long-term composite technology strategies; ensuring that the necessary materials, manufacturing and process technologies are available to meet component needs. Rob represents Rolls-Royce on the National Composites Centre (NCC), University of Bristol Industrial Advisory Boards and on CMH-17 working groups.

Ryan Higgins: Structures Technical Engineer, British Airways Engineering (LHR)

Ryan Higgins is a Structures Technical Engineer in the Engineering Operational Control Centre at British Airways (BA). He is a member of a small team responsible for the day-to-day operational support for technical issues involving airframe structures.

Ryan is a Queen’s University of Belfast, Aerospace Engineering Alumni. After completing his studies at Queen’s, he secured a place on the BA Engineering Graduate Programme where he spent two years exposed to various departments within the BA engineering business. Upon completion of the Graduate Programme, Ryan secured a role in the New Aircraft Entry into Service Team, preparing for the arrival of the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787.  

Marcel Buckley: Global Composite Technology Cluster Leader, GKN Aerospace

Marcel Buckley has spent 25 years in composite/aerospace technology. He currently leads the area of Near-Term Technology Insertion for the European part of the GKN Aerospace Business. The aim of the position is taking current technology where the basic process parameters are known, and to ensure technologies reach the shop floor in good time. The role is very focused on the technology to business value/risk proposition needed to provide for the smooth introduction of technologies. Before joining GKN Marcel lead Composite Technologies at Airbus UK, and prior to this worked and studied at Cranfield University, Shrivenham.

Quinten Northfield: Senior Design Engineer - Composites, Research and Advanced Engineering, Jaguar and Land Rover

Quinten joined Jaguar Land Rover in 2013 as senior composites design engineer, and oversaw the composite engineering design processes for the VARCITY Innovate UK and Office for Low Emissions Vehicles (OLEV), project within JLR research. Quinten has worked within the field of composites for F1 motorsport, aerospace and automotive sectors, since leaving university in 1997. 

Quinten has designed carbon fibre reinforced composite parts using candidate processing techniques for volume manufacture such as High pressure RTM, press compression moulding, and short fibre compression moulding using a wide range of composite materials and reinforcements. Quinten is an advocate of employing the latest industry software to support design for manufacture techniques to drive toward robust component definitions.

John Darlington: Head of Product Management, TenCate Advanced Composites

John Darlington has over 20 years in the thermoplastic and thermoset composite industry from raw materials to final components and has a background in Mechanical Engineering. He obtained his PhD in Concurrent Process Modelling from Durham University, and currently leads the product management department at TenCate Advanced Composites, launching innovative composite material solutions for aerospace and industrial markets.

Tim Swait: Technical Lead, Composites Centre

Dr Tim Swait leads the Advanced Curing technology stream at the AMRC- Composite Centre. After gaining a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering he completed a PhD in composite materials, both at the University of Sheffield. After a brief spell working as a Research Associate he moved to the AMRC and has led a number of (mainly aerospace related) projects within the composite centre. He is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society (serving on the committee of the Sheffield Branch).

James Myers: Head of Innovation & Technology, James Dawson Ltd, Fenner PLC