Dr Geoffrey Neale

Areas of expertise

• Aerospace Manufacturing
• Composites
• Aerospace Materials
• Nanomaterials

Background

Dr Geoffrey Neale graduated from the University of Bristol with an MEng in Aerospace Engineering. He went on to pursue a PhD in Advanced Composite Materials at the Engineering Composites Research Centre at Ulster University, where he worked as part of the EU Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie ICONIC ITN. The project focused on improving the crashworthiness of composite materials and Geoffrey’s PhD research developed crashworthy, functionally graded 3D woven composites for use in aerospace and automotive structures. He helped to expand the understanding of the behaviour of these materials and refine material design for manufacturability. Before Joining Cranfield University, Geoff held a postdoctoral position at Ulster University working jointly between the School of Engineering and the School of Biomedical Sciences. More recently, Geoff has worked predominantly on the manufacture and characterisation of functional through-thickness reinforced composite materials as part  of the EU funded SEER project (A “Smart” Self-monitoring composite tool for aerospace composite manufacturing using Silicon photonic multi-sEnsors Embedded using through-thickness Reinforcement techniques).

Current activities

Geoff is currently a Lecturer in the Composites and Advanced Materials Centre at Cranfield. His area of focus is multifunctional composite structures with a view to achieving multifunctionality in composites via material hybridisation. He is interested both structural and non-structural analysis of composites and in how novel fabrication methods can be used to achieve this, expanding the use of composites beyond its traditional industries.

Clients

• European Commission
• British Academy

Publications

• Articles in journals
• Conference papers