Dr Quentin Fontana

Specialist in Composite Materials and Funded Research

Telephone:	07969 784 804
E-mail:

I am a freelance consultant having set up my own business in March 2014; I specialize in composite materials and collaborative research programmes.

I have over twenty five years of industrial experience working on composite materials research mainly related to the development of materials and processes with British Aerospace (now BAE SYSTEMS) and then Advanced Composites Group (ACG), which subsequently became Umeco and later Cytec Industrial Materials. I was a Senior Project Manager, Collaborative Research and Technology, therefore I am ideally suited to provide the following services:

Drawing-up of research proposals for funding

Formation of collaborative research consortia

Advice on composite materials and tooling

Scientific and technical support

I also worked for Haydale Composite Solutions as a Collaborative Research Manager looking at enhancing composite materials through the use of functionalized nano-particulate additions including carbon nano tubes and graphene.

I am a materials scientist by background with a first degree in Metallurgy and Materials from Imperial College and a PhD in composite materials from the University of Cambridge.

My Key Skills and Attributes

· Established and respected member of the advanced composite materials community.

· Extensive knowledge of advanced composite materials.

· Broad network within industry and academia.

· Strong industrial research background.

· Experience of UK and European-based collaborative research programmes.

· Excellent record in project management with 100% project completion rate.

· Proven record in financial management of projects with annual budgets exceeding £1.3M.

· Good record of successful bids for funding.

· Good problem-solving and analytical skills.

· Good communication skills including presentation skills.

· Ability to work individually or as part of a team.

· High level of professional integrity.

· High degree of computer literacy.

My Qualifications

BSc (Eng) Metallurgy and Materials, with Second Class Honours (Upper Division) and Associate of the Royal School of Mines; Imperial College, University of London, 1985.

Doctor of Philosophy: University of Cambridge; October 1990; thesis title: Speed and Temperature Effects in the Energy Absorption of Axially Crushed Composite Tubes.

My Professional Activities

I am Secretary to the Board of the British Composites Society, a Technical Division of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoM³); my work with the BCS has also included organizing international conferences.

I am on the Editorial Board of the journal Advanced Manufacturing: Polymer & Composites Science.

I have authored or co-authored a number of publications reflecting some of the technical work that I have covered.

I have given a number of presentations at international conferences.

I also hold a patent: Shahidi Ebrahim Gharvam, Fontana Quentin: A sealing device, and corresponding method of sealing, for providing a seal on a collapsible mould tool. Advanced Composites Group January 2006: GB2415754.

My Experience

Whilst with Advanced Composites Group I gained considerable experience in managing collaborative research. The majority of my work was in the aerospace industry but I also worked on a wide range of projects aligned to a number of other industrial sectors such as infrastructure, marine, automotive and renewable energy. I worked closely with a number of top UK and European universities, many UK and European companies including SMEs, as well as all of the major European airframe manufacturers. I gained a reputation for successful project management leading to 100% completion of the projects for which I was responsible. Proposals that I was involved in preparing had a very good rate of success in gaining funding.

I have had significant technical input into the projects that I have covered in a range of areas including: tooling design and manufacture, process development, process modelling, material property database generation, finite element modelling, material development, nano particulates, thermal control, multifunctional materials, ceramic matrix composites and multi-functional materials.

The projects with which I have been involved have been either UK-based with funding through the Technology Strategy Board (or its predecessors) or pan-European projects with European Commission support funding through the Framework Programmes.

UK Projects
Precimould Plus	This project aimed at developing a capability for designing tooling to account for processing distortions to allow for a right-first-time component. This project won a JEC innovation award for software in 2008.
WILMA	A follow-on from Precimould Plus with an emphasis on warpage predictions during processing.
PhysViz	Innovative use of computer gaming techniques to predict real-time draping of fabrics over composite moulds.
NEW-MMEETT	New Materials for Energy Efficient Tidal Turbines, this aimed to improve materials and design for tidal turbine blades with an emphasis on improving the fatigue behaviour.
BMAX	A follow-on from NEW-MMEETT which aimed to improve the resistance to moisture ingress during long-term immersion of tidal turbine blades in seawater.
CMC	Development of prepreg-based production for an oxide-oxide ceramic matrix composite material for power generation gas turbine engines.
DSR Cryogenic Marine	This was to design and build a demonstrator of deep-sea recovery buoyancy caissons with highly-controllable buoyancy through the use of cryogenic gases. The project was very successful with a capability of controlling the depth of the buoyancy caisson to within half a metre while giving a lifting capacity of five tonnes.
GraCELS	A NATEP project which used functionalized nanoparticles in an epoxy resin to enhance electrical conductivity and greatly improve the performance of carbon fibre-based composites during a lightning-strike event.

European Projects
SAFECOMP	A cooperative programme for SMEs with the emphasis on safety enhancement in composites.
FUBACOMP	An aerospace-sector project which designed and manufactured and tested a fully-wound fuselage section from a business jet.
StorAGE	Development of multifunctional capabilities for composite materials to enable structural components to store electrical energy.
Trans-IND	An infrastructure project aimed at developing technology to produce motorway bridges via off-site manufacture of parts selected from a catalogue, these parts, including the structural beams, barriers and decking.
LAYSA	A broad project looking at multi-functionality in composite laminates through selective properties in the different layers; for instance, tailoring thermal conductivity to allow for more effective de-icing of aircraft wings and enhancing the outer layers whilst tailoring thermal conductivity to improve fire resistance.
ELECTRICAL	Concentrating on lightning-strike protection in commercial aircraft, this project aimed to improve the electrical conductivity of composite components in the through-thickness direction through the addition of nano-particulates, such as multi-walled carbon nano tubes and grapheme, to the matrix resin.
COEUS-TITAN	A project based on improving smart tooling for composite materials; my work was looking into the effectiveness of thermal control systems for non oven-based processing of prepregs and liquid infusion processing.
ROV-E	A space-sector project looking to develop technology for a Martian rover. My work involved the improvement of through-the-thickness thermal conductivity of high-performance cyanate ester-based composites through the addition of grapheme and other nano particulates into the resin.