Presenters' biographies

Shri P. K. Bagchi
obtained his Master of Mechanical Engineering from Calcutta University in 1969. He has 34 years experience in development of various filament winding machines and FRP products for space, sports and commercial applications. He worked from 1970 to 1986 at Composite Group of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Trivandrum, and from 1986 to 1996 at Carbon Composites Ltd., Calcutta. From 1996 to 2000 he was consultant to Duroflex Ltd (Natura Division), Bangalore, and to Natura Fibretech Pvt. Ltd., Bangalore. Since 2000 he is consultant to KINECO, Goa, for design and development of various composites products. He has published several papers.

Dr. Scott W. Beckwith,
graduated from Texas A & M University (BS, PhD) in 1964, 1974 and the California Institute of Technology (MS) in 1965. He is the International Technical Director of SAMPE, the Technical Editor of the SAMPE Journal and a SAMPE Fellow (2003). He is the recipient of the SME Composites Manufacturing Association Jud Hall Award Composites Manufacturing (1996) and the SACMA Materials Leadership Award (1999). He is the president of BTG Composites and a managing member of Beckwith Technology Group, two consultancy firms that are heavily involved in design, analysis, plant set-up, testing and manufacturing of composites using filament winding, fiber placement, resin infusion, pultrusion, vacuum bagging and other advanced composites techniques. He is also a recognized technical Expert Witness involving patent, trade secret, materials, failure analysis and manufacturing technologies for composites, plastics and solid rocket motors.

Nicolas Bedouin,
born in 1979, studied materials engineering at the INP Grenoble, France and the Imperial College London, England. After that he obtained his master degree in strategy and marketing at Lyon Management School (EM Lyon), France. He has joined the Twintex marketing team in 2003 in order to take charge of the non automotive field and work in sales development.

Roberto Blasi,
born in Rome in 1964, studied mechanical engineering at the II University of Rome «TOR VERGATA». In 1990 he started to work at B.P.D. Difesa e Spazio Colleferro, Rome (now part AVIO Propulsione Aerospaziale Group) on the astronautical field (design and testing of solid rocket propulsion). Since 1994 he is responsible for product industrialization and special machinery set up.

Christophe Ducret,
born in 1972, studied plastics and composites engineering in INSA and ITECH Lyon, France. He worked from 1998 to 2000 at Valeo as project engineer for automotive cabin air filters. In 2000, he joined Saint-Gobain Vetrotex International to be in charge of Twintex filament winding and pultrusion projects.

Dr. Alexander Fjeldly,
born 1971, obtained his Master of Science in physical metallurgy at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, in 1994 and his Dr. Ing. in materials science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 1999. Employed as a research scientist by FFI since 1998. His main responsibility is the analysis and design of composite rocket motors.

John Green
has been selling and promoting filament winding machines and other composite process equipment for over 17 years. He started in composites in the mid 1980’s as a sales representative for Engineering Technology (EnTec). In 1992 he left EnTec to form Composite Machines Company (CMC) as a part owner. He was Vice President of Sales. In 1999 he sold his interest in CMC to Zoltek and assisted in the creation of Entec Composite Machines (ECM) where he was Director of Worldwide Sales and Service. In 2001 John left ECM to form his own company, GSG, Inc. The main focus of GSG, Inc. is to promote the use, expansion and growth of filament winding, pultrusion and other composite processing techniques.

Dr. Wolf-Ulrich Herres,
born in 1957, studied mechanical engineering at the RWTH Aachen, Germany. For six years he worked as scientific engineer at the WZL (Institute for Production Technologies) of the RWTH Aachen and obtained his PhD. He has joined the International Technical Development Center of Adam Opel AG in 1991 and worked in different positions of manufacturing and product engineering. Since 1999 Wolf-Ulrich Herres is responsible for manufacturing concepts at the project center "Fuel Cell Activities" of Adam Opel AG with the focus on quality and cost targets to be achieved for the automotive serial production of fuel cell and hydrogen storage components.

Bernhard J. Kanka,
born 1952, studied mechanical engineering (materials) at the University of Applied Sciences in Dortmund, Germany, and graduated in 1980. Since 1980 he works at German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Institute for materials research in the ceramic division. The last years he has been responsible for the development of high temperature oxide ceramic composites for applications in the field of aerospace. He is author and co-author of several publications and e.g. inventor of the new all-oxide ceramic system WHIPOXR (wound highly porous oxide ceramic matrix composite).

Dr. Jens Krieger
studied mechanical engineering at the technical university RWTH Aachen, Germany. Since 1993 he worked as a project engineer at ISATEC GmbH, Aachen, specialized on CAx engineering services in product development. He is also focusing on analysis and design of composite parts, e.g. space structures and pressure vessels. Since 1996 he is managing such projects. Part time he worked as a scientific engineer at the Department for Mathematical Modelling in Material Science at the RWTH Aachen. He established there a project in the area of analysing composite pressure vessels, which was a co-operation with the Brazilian Center for Aerospace Technology, CTA. He obtained his PhD in 2003.

Jörg B. Multhoff
graduated 1999 as mechanical engineer from RWTH (technical university) Aachen, Germany. From 1999 to 2003 he worked as research assistant in the Department for Mathematical Modeling in Material Science at RWTH Aachen. He was responsible for the project "Failure Analysis of High-Pressure Vessels made from Composite Materials". This project was a co-operation with the Brazilian center for Aerospace Technology, CTA, sponsored by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, and the German National Science Foundation, DFG. Since December 2003 he is employed as project leader at ISATEC Engineering GmbH, Aachen, Germany - a company specializing on engineering services in product development. Among other projects his work involves analysis and design of composite parts including composite pressure vessels.

Michael Päßler
studied mechanical engineering / process technology at the University of Kaiserslautern (FH), Germany. In 1990/1991 he worked at Linde, Germany in the planning of chemical installations. Since 1991 he is technical assistant at the Institute for Composites (IVW), Germany.

Thorsten Scheibel,
born 1963, studied material technology at the University Friedberg, Germany. Since 1990 he is employed by Schunk Kohlenstofftechnik GmbH in Giessen, Germany. Until 2003 he hold the position of production manager in the composites department. Since 2004 he is new business development and vice manager composites.

Axel Seifert,
born 1963, studied mechanical engineering at the RWTH (technical university) Aachen, Germany. In 1990 he co-founded MATERIAL S.A., Belgium, an engineering company specializing in filament winding. As a leading expert in process automation and production optimization he is a seminar instructor and speaker at international conferences about composite processing.

Michael Sonnen,
born 1965, studied mechanical engineering at the Fachhochschule Aachen, Germany (1984-1989). From 1989 to 1993 he worked at the IKV (Institute for Plastics Processing) as scientific assistant in the fields composite part design, laminate analysis and composite processing methods. From 1993 to 1997 he was head of the composite group of Verseidag Indutex, Germany (textile systems and thermoplastic prepregs). Since 1997 he has been responsible for engineering services at MATERIAL S.A., Belgium.

Dr. Brian E. Spencer
graduated from the University of Nebraska (BS, Ph.D.) in 1988, and the University of California/Berkeley (ME) in 1971 and the University of California/Davis (ME) in 1980. He has been president and CEO of Spencer Composites Corporation, a company specializing in the design and manufacturing of filament wound composites, since 1994. He previously worked for Brunswick Corporation, and was co-founder of Addax and Spyrotech corporations. Dr. Spencer has served actively as committee member, conference chair, technical speaker, and tutorial instructor for SAMPE and SME on filament winding composites structures, design, and analysis. He is the 1998 recipient of the Jud Hall award sponsored by the Composites Manufacturing Association of Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

Stein Tenden,
born in 1959. obtained his master of science in applied mathematics at University of Oslo, Norway, in 1987. Since then he is employed by Nammo Raufoss, Norway, as a propulsion engineer. He is an expert in filament wound composite structures for rocket motors.

Prof. Dr. Luigi Torre,
born in 1962, got his degree in chemical engineering form the University of Naples, Italy, in 1989 and his Ph.D in chemical engineering from the University of Washington (Seattle), USA, in 1994. In 1995 he worked for a short period at CERN (European Research Centre for Nuclear Energy) in Geneva, Switzerland, on the development of composite tubes for ultra high vacuum chambers. Later he worked as research associate at the department of material and production engineering of the University of Naples, Italy, and in 1996 he joined the University of Perugia, Italy, where he is now professor of composite materials science and technologies. He is author of several papers on polymeric and composite materials. His research intersts are: characterization of thermoplastic and thermoset matrices for polymeric composites, thermal analysis, modeling of composite and polymer processing, degradation of composite and polymeric materials, ablative materials, plastic recycling, crush resistant structures, nanocomposites, life cycle analysis.