The University of Bristol is one of the most prestigious universities in the UK. The Department of Aerospace Engineering has been rated as the top UK Aerospace Department; with 95% of the publications produced between 2002 and 2008 rated as international leading by the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008. The Department hosts the Composites Research Group of the Advanced Composites Centre for Innovation and Science (ACCIS) managing research contracts with a total of 30 MEU. ACCIS is based in the £20M state of the art BLADE laboratories, and a new £5.4M extension provides additional bespoke office and lab space. Currently, there are 38 affiliated academic who will be able to contribute ideas and specialist expertise to the programme where appropriate. ACCIS was selected to host the Rolls-Royce Composites UTC (2007) and the Vestas Strategic Partnership on composites (2009) after a competitive process among universities both in the UK and abroad. Similarly, we were selected to host the EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre in Composites (2008) and the National Composites Centre (2009) in competition with other institutions. We have state-of-the-art composites manufacturing capability, including a range of various sized autoclaves (including full-size blade/rotor/wing making capability) and a new £1M advanced fibre placement machine
PEOPLE
Professor Paul Weaver