Prof. William M Banks from the University of Strathclyde visited the Center for Smart Materials and Structures (CSMS), and gave atalk about The Design of Composite Structures: Some Basic Principles and Example Application and Research.
Biography
Professor Banks is currently the Emeritus Professor of Advanced Materials in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde and a Past President of the IMechE (2008-2009). He has served on and chaired a large number of its committees including the Trustee Board, Council and the Trustee Board Awards Committee (currently Chairman). He has also chaired a few specialist committees including the Schools and Students Working Group where the objective was to interest young people in engineering. He is also Editor–in-Chief of one of its Proceedings Journals. Professor Banks is a past Chairman of the Engineering Professors’ Council (EPC). He is only the second Scot to have held this post. During his time as Chairman he became well known nationally for his championing of many quality causes and in particular for putting EPC on the Government’s agenda and keeping engineering education in the appropriate public domain.
His research work has spanned composite structures technology to seminal work on the NDE of adhesively bonded joints using dielectric spectroscopy. He developed the composites research from scratch in his department at Strathclyde to a position in which Strathclyde is now recognized as a Centre of Excellence in this field internationally. A total of around 200 papers have been published. He has also acted as a consultant to many companies and formerly transferred his wide ranging research findings through the Directorship of the Centre for Advanced Structural Materials (CASM) and the Scottish Polymer Technology Network (SPTN).
Topic of Invited talk
The Design of Composite Structures: Some Basic Principles and Example Application and Research.
