Contact Dr Richard Critchley

Areas of expertise

  • Armour systems
  • Structures and Materials
  • Vehicle Engineering & Mobility

Background

Dr Richard Critchley is a senior lecturer in impact and explosive engineering at Cranfield University who previously worked as a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of the West of England and a project engineer in industry for an SME. Dr Critchley is the holder of a PhD in mechanical engineering from Southampton University, which focused on bioinspired technologies for mitigating behind armour blunt trauma. Dr Critchley is a subject matter expert in the field of force protection and blast engineering and is a chartered member of the IMechE. Dr Critchley has extensive experience of teaching all levels of higher education and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. Dr Critchley has supervised over 50 students at all levels of higher education in research topics including natural fibres for ballistic protection, novel infills for helmets and 3D printing of novel lattice structures for blast mitigation. Dr Critchley has authored numerous papers in his academic career in areas including blast mitigation, auxetic materials and impact mechanics and collaborates with several defence partners including DSTL and DE&S.

Current activities

Richard is primarily responsible for teaching Royal Engineers Force Protection Engineering Course that explores the fundamental theory that underpins security engineering. He is also the module leader for Munitions Target Response and Explosives Effects on Structure, which explore the mechanisms by which different armour materials and structures withstand a variety of blast and ballistic threats. Richard has a number of different research interest including:

Auxetic Materials

Porous Materials

Blast effects (Structures, Vehicles and People)

Protective Engineering

Force Protection

Impact Mechanics

Computational Modelling

Publications

Articles In Journals