Aerospace
Composite tooling design & manufacture including development of components for aero engine projects. Aircraft interior tooling design for major aircraft manufacturers.
Defence
Composites process & press tooling design for ejector seats. Reverse engineering of legacy components for fast-jet & transport aircraft. Design of composite components, tooling & processes for full mission simulators.
Marine & ROV
Tooling and manufacturing process design for submarine mast antennae, radomes & sonar domes. Reverse engineering of legacy parts and processes. Design of moulds and fixtures.
Space
Design of high modulus panels for research satellites. Technical oversight & design of assembly, bonding and test fixtures for the SLOMV composite satellite launch vehicle.
Research & Development
Collaborative design of test fixtures & processes for shrinkage evaluation. Rubber intensifier/vacuum bag characterisation. Catapult & Tier 1 development programmes & process equipment.
Industrial
Composite tooling design and part manufacture including CMM arms, imaging frames, high speed machine components, printing equipment & camera gimbal assemblies.
Automotive
Design of composite tooling & manufacturing processes for low volume programmes including bodywork, structural elements and battery box assemblies.
Medical
Composite process & tooling development for prosthetic applications. Tooling design for monolithic and sandwich panel structures for X-Ray and treatment couches.
Radomes & Comms
Electronic enclosures, EMI protection (metallic deposition coatings, metalised fibres, loaded paints. Design concept studies on large radome structures. Tooling design for uplink antennas, legacy UAT and navigation radomes.
Sectors
Motorsport
Manufacture of composite structures for Indycar, F1, Group C including chassis, wings, flaps and floors. Design of tooling & fixtures for plenums, ducts, aero parts, suspension & engine components.
Services
Tooling Design
Autoclave moulds
Press moulds & preform fixtures
Tooling process & materials selection
3D parametric surface, solid & assembly design
Draft analysis
Patterns, CNC fixtures, vacuum fixtures, bond fixtures, drill jigs, caul plates/intensifiers
Inspection & test fixtures
Storage, racking, tables, trollies
General assembly drawings
GDT & detail drawings
NPI Engineering
Specification reviews
Customer drawing/definition reviews
Flat ply profiles from 3D CAD (complexity dependent)
Process instructions inc. lay-up books & check sheets
Standard process specifications/documentation
Process reviews & gap analysis
Part-specific inspection processes
Process specifications to ISO9001 & AS9100
Legacy/Reverse Engineering
Reverse engineering from legacy CAD, drawings & parts
Materials & processes to support re-qualification
Reconstruction/repair of CAD surfaces
Material selection and process definition/update
Simulation to support re-qualification (externally supported)
Legacy CAD file conversion
Research & Development
Tooling & process design for R&D programmes
Preforming and DDF processes
Mandrels, bladder moulding, foam cores
High temperature, low CTE prototype tooling
About
My composites career started at Advanced Composite Technology (later to become ACG, Umeco, Cytec, Solvay and now Syensqo).
I had the benefit of hands-on experience working on hundreds of composite chassis including Indycar, Formula 1, Group C, Formula Atlantic, Formula 3 and thousands of other structural and aero components.
The development of tooling prepregs at ACG (LTM series) led to involvement in some very large composite tooling programmes for worldwide aerospace companies and OEM's.
In addition to my full time roles, I spent my evenings at university and was very lucky to be supported and mentored by some excellent material scientists, chemists, engineers and skilled production staff at ACG.
Fast forward to today, via different employers, colleagues, roles and projects I've been a project engineer, engineering manager, design manager, project manager, chief counsellor, design engineer, estimating engineer & technical director.
I've also had the challenges of rebuilding quality management systems, implementing MRP, factory relocations and many customer and ISO9001/AS9100 audits.
In recent years I have provided composite technical & engineering oversight and tooling design for:
UK Space Industry: Cube-sat launch vehicle
Aerospace Commercial Jet: New engine development components
Aerospace Business Jet: Fast-make engine development components
Defence Industry: Tooling re-design & ROV design project
Research & Development: Process industry parts.
Nexus Composite Engineering Ltd
Company No. 13814033
Alfreton
Derbyshire
United Kingdom
DE55 6AA
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