Cranfield University

Professor Stewart Williams

Director of Welding Engineering and Laser Processing Centre
Location: Building 46, Cranfield campus
E: s.williams@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 754693
Manufacturing and Materials

Current activities

Stewart’s main areas of current research are additive manufacture, laser processing, residual stress control, and aluminium welding. Additive manufacture refers to the build up of structures directly from weld metal for repair or manufacture. This is done on a large scale with high deposition rates for engineering structures such as parts of aircraft. This is being combined with machining in order to develop systems capable of producing ready to use parts directly from CAD files.  This work is in cooperation with nearly thirty industrial companies. 

Laser processing research is focussed on the use of high power and high beam quality fibre lasers in welding applications. These applications include micro welding, dissimilar material welding and hybrid welding where the laser is combined with an arc source. Residual stress control research is aimed at modifying the real time stress field during welding by applying various mechanical or thermal techniques; this is called Stress Engineering (SE). The aluminium welding combines microstructural modelling with multi-wire systems in order to control weld metal chemistry and avoid cracking. This is being applied to ballistic applications such as armoured vehicles..

In addition to his duties as Director of the Welding Engineering and Laser Processing Centre (WELP), he is manager of the technology theme for the IMRC which is run within the materials department.

Stewart is also coordinator for the Advanced Welding Processes module, which is within the MSc in Welding Engineering which is run by the Welding Engineering and Laser Processing Centre. 

Clients

Background

Stewart Williams obtained his PhD in laser physics at London University. The main part of the research involved designing and building several novel lasers. Following his academic training Stewart spent five years at Edinburgh Instruments, a small company producing lasers and laser systems. In this time he was involved in developing accessories for CO2 waveguide lasers and producing industrial and medical laser systems. 

In 1987 Stewart moved to the Advanced Technology Centre of BAE Systems where he ran a group whose main area of research was laser processing of aerospace materials. This research included welding, cutting, drilling, micromachining and surface treatment of a wide range of materials such as aluminium, titanium and carbon fibre reinforced composites. Other keys areas of research were residual stress control in welding and direct write of functional materials.

In 2006 Stewart moved to Cranfield University to take a chair in Welding Science and Engineering and to become Director of the Welding Engineering and Laser Processing Centre (WELP). Here he continues to apply his experience and knowledge of material processing in a wide range of research areas; enabling the WELP to broaden and develop its technology and application areas. Stewart is currently the Vice-President of the Association of Laser Users (AILU)

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