Professor David Knowles

FREng Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) is an award and Scholarship, fellowship for engineers who are recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering as being the best and brightest engineers, inventors and technologists in the UK a ...

FIMMM (born 6 January 1967) is Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

and Chief Executive of the UK's

Henry Royce Institute The Henry Royce Institute (often referred to as ‘Royce’) is the UK’s national institute for advanced materials research and innovation. Its vision is to identify challenges and to stimulate innovation in advanced materials research to suppo ...

for advanced materials research. From 2016 to 2019, he was the co-director of the South West Nuclear Hub, and Atkins Fellow. His work focusses primarily on understanding and modelling the degradation mechanisms in metallic materials and their interrelation with the structural integrity of rotating and static equipment in the energy sector.

Education

Knowles was educated at

Toller Porcorum Toller Porcorum () is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the River Toller, Toller valley northwest of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the 2011 census the civil parish—which also includes t ...

primary school,

Beaminster School , established = , closed = , type = Voluntary controlled school , religious_affiliation = Christian , president = , head_label = Headteacher , head = Keith Hales , r_head_label = , r_head ...

and

St Catharine's College, Cambridge St Catharine's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1473 as Katharine Hall, it adopted its current name in 1860. The college is nicknamed "Catz". The college is located in the historic city-centre of Camb ...

, graduating from the University in 1988, with triple

first class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

in natural sciences (taking Materials Science and Metallurgy in Part II). He then went on to complete a PhD in 1991 - on the topic of the fatigue and fracture behaviour of aluminium-lithium based composites - under the supervision of Dr Julia King (now

Baroness Brown of Cambridge Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

Career

Knowles began his career in 1991 with a

research fellowship A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a pr ...

at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, before moving to New Zealand to work as a research and consultancy

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

for

Industrial Research Ltd Industrial Research Limited (IRL) was a Crown Research Institute of New Zealand that was established in 1992 and merged into Callaghan Innovation, a new Crown entity, on 1 February 2013. IRL provided research, development and commercialisation ...

between 1993 and 1995. He then returned to the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1995 to take up a post as Lecturer in Mechanical Properties of Materials, and was also appointed Assistant Director of Research of the Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre. His research at that time focussed on fatigue and creep in nickel based

superalloys A superalloy, or high-performance alloy, is an alloy with the ability to operate at a high fraction of its melting point. Several key characteristics of a superalloy are excellent mechanical strength, resistance to thermal creep deformation, g ...

including high stress 'low' temperature creep

anisotropy Anisotropy () is the property of a material which allows it to change or assume different properties in different directions, as opposed to isotropy. It can be defined as a difference, when measured along different axes, in a material's physic ...

in single crystals. In 2001 Knowles returned to New Zealand to take up the role of CTO at MPT Solutions, where he continued to publish academic papers with a developing interest in

crystal plasticity Crystal plasticity is a mesoscale computational technique that takes into account crystallographic anisotropy in modelling the mechanical behaviour of Crystallite, polycrystalline materials. The technique has typically been used to study deformatio ...

. In 2006 he was appointed Global Research Leader for Materials at

Shell Global Solutions Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

, based in Amsterdam looking into materials for

LNG Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volu ...

and

gas to liquid Gas to liquids (GTL) is a refinery process to convert natural gas or other gaseous hydrocarbons into longer-chain hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or diesel fuel. Methane-rich gases are converted into liquid synthetic fuels. Two general strategies ex ...

technologies. In 2010, he moved to

Atkins Atkins may refer to: Places in the United States * Atkins, Arkansas, a city * Atkins, Iowa, a city * Atkins, Louisiana, an unincorporated community * Atkins, Nebraska, an unincorporated community * Atkins, Virginia, a census-designated place * ...

as their materials authority in the energy sector, focussing on offshore wind turbine foundations and nuclear Advanced Gas Reactors. In 2016 he took up a post at the

as Professor of Nuclear Engineering, and Co-Director of the South West Nuclear Hub. Knowles was named Chief Executive of the

for advanced materials research in 2019. He has continued his research as the principal investigator on the 'Sindri' prosperity partnership

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to universi ...

project, working with a number of university partners alongside EDF and

UKAEA The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( ...

, which is focussed on characterising and modelling the meso to macro scale mechanics of alloys. In particular, he is interested in researching the use of data-centric methods to interrogate and describe material mechanical behaviour which can then be used to predict the condition of components of nuclear power plants.

Awards and recognition

Knowles was awarded a Fellowship of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining ( FIMMM) in 2004 in recognition of his contributions to the field of materials science. In 2015, he was also made Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (

). He holds two European patents and has authored over 100 academic papers - five of which have been cited over 100 times - and he has also given a number of invited lectures and conference keynotes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Knowles, David 1967 births Living people Royal Academy of Engineering Materials scientists and engineers Metallurgists Fracture mechanics Fellows of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellows of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining