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Peter W R Beaumont BSc(Hons) MA(Cantab) DPhil DSc

Biography

Dr Beaumont has received a number of EPSRC research grants, including many others from the US and UK governments, and from industry. These grants support research into the Structural Integrity of Composite Materials and Structures. His research has led to a new formulation of the principles of damage mechanics of composite materials for which he received the Distinguished Research Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Recently, the University of Sussex awarded Dr Beaumont the degree of Doctor of Science, the first DSc awarded to one of its alumni in Applied Sciences since the founding of the University nearly 50 years ago. His work has resulted in 170 scientific papers, research treatise, books, encyclopaedia, Composites Design Guide (with Prof Byron Pipes, University of Delaware), Design with Advanced Composite Materials (with Leslie N Phillips OBE for The Design Council), conference proceedings, etc.

In research, Dr Beaumont has collaborated with Professor H. Sekine, Tohoku University, Japan, supported by The Daiwa Foundation, Royal Academy of Engineering, and The Royal Society. Also, with Professor R. Fredell, US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs supported by EOARD, London. On several occasions, The Royal Society and NATO has supported his work during extended visits to the University of California, Santa Barbara, and at Harvard and Princeton Universities, collaborating with Professor Tony Evans; also, with Professor Mark Spearing at MIT.

EPSRC and The Royal Society have supported Dr Beaumont’s visits to The Peoples’ Republic of China in order to set up collaborative research programmes between Cambridge and Chinese universities including the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr Beaumont’s first visit was in 1982.

Dr Beaumont has been principal organizer of several prestigious international conferences including the two unique meetings co-sponsored by EPSRC and the National Sciences Foundation (NSF) in the USA. Over two decades, he was on the steering committee of the prestigious Gordon Research Conferences in the USA. He was Vice-President of the International Conference on Composite Materials (ICCM).

For more than four decades, Dr Beaumont has been guest speaker at universities around the world including lecturing at universities and industry in USA, Mexico, India, Australia, Taiwan, China, and the EU. His consulting activities include the Du Pont Experimental Station, Wilmington, DE (working with Dr Ben Epstein on fracture mechanics of Super Tough Nylon and fatigue of Kevlar fibre); and Rockwell International, Thousand Oaks CA (working with Dr David H Kaelble on the adhesive problems of space shuttle tiles) plus more than 75 industrial short courses at the University of California and throughout the USA; University of Surrey; University of Sydney; IIT Delhi; University of Monterey, Mexico; and numerous companies in the US and EU.

Dr Beaumont is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Applied Composite Materials. Also Founding Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Multiscale Modelling, and numerous other journals.

Dr Beaumont was assistant professor at UCLA (1970-3) and currently is Reader in Engineering Materials in the University Engineering Department, Cambridge. He is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

A selection of papers and books over the past decade only.

[1] SEKINE H and BEAUMONT PWR (1998), "A physically based micromechanical theory of macroscopic stress-corrosion cracking in aligned continuous glass fibre- reinforced polymer laminates". Composites Science and Technology, 58, (10) 1659-1665.

[2] SPEARING SM and BEAUMONT PWR (1998), "Towards a predictive design methodology of fibre composite materials". Applied Composite Materials, 5 (2) 69-94.

[3] DIMANT R, SHERCLIFF H and BEAUMONT PWR (2002), "Evaluation of a damage-mechanics approach to the modelling of notched strength in KFRP and GRP", Composites Science and Technology 62 255-263

[4] BEAUMONT PWR and SEKINE H (2202), “Physical Modelling of Engineering Problems of Composites and Structures”. Key Engineering Materials Vols 221-222. Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

[5] BEAUMONT PWR (2004), Physical Modelling of Damage Development in Structural Composite Materials Under Stress, Chapter 13: Fatigue in Composites, Edited by B Harris, CRC/Woodhead Publishing Limited. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Boston, New York and Washington DC.

[6] BEAUMONT PWR (2005), Cracking models, Chapter 3: Multi-Scale Modelling of Composite Material Systems. Editors: C. Soutis and P W R Beaumont. Published by Woodhead Publishing Limited Cambridge, England. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Boston, New York and Washington DC.

[7] BEAUMONT PWR (2006), Advances in Multi-Scale Modelling of Composite Material Systems and Components. Special issue of the Journal of Materials Science, Volume 41, Number 20, October. Invited Editor: Peter W R Beaumont.

[8] BEAUMONT, P W R (2006), “Cracking models; broken parts”. Applied Composite Materials, 13, 265-285.

[9] Stretching the Endurance Boundary of Composite Materials: Pushing the Performance Limit of Composite Structures. Special issue of the Journal of Materials Science, Volume 43, Issue 20, October 2008. Invited Editor: Peter W R Beaumont.

[10] BEAUMONT PWR (2009), Solving Problems of Composite Fracture by Multi-scale Modelling. P W R Beaumont. J. Multiscale Modelling, Vol. 1. No. 1 (January).

[11] BEAUMONT PWR (2010), Targetting Problems of Composite Failure by Peter W R Beaumont. Key Engineering Materials Vols 417-418. Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.