Graham Bevan

Graham Bevan has worked in or been associated with the aircraft industry most of his working life. His involvement with composites started in 1969 when he joined Rolls-Royce Composite Materials (RRCM) as a materials engineer, from the Structural and Materials Test Laboratories of the then British Aircraft Corporation. During the past 35 years, he has maintained this involvement with composites with a number of companies and has acquired considerable knowledge on the subject. Mr. Bevan joined the In-Service Support Department of Airbus (U.K.) Ltd. in 1991 as a composites specialist and has remained at Airbus to the present day. His work at Airbus is now involved with composite repairs and other in-service issues. He has many years of experience related to the manufacture of Airbus composite components. Mr. Bevan is a past member of the Airbus Industrie (Al) Composite Repairs Task Group, and he was and still is involved with providing input to the Airbus Structural Repair Manuals (SRMs). He also was closely involved with the draft preparation of data for the Airbus Industrie composite repair courses for airline engineers. Mr. Bevan is a member of the Repair Task Group of the SAE/IATA/ATA Commercial Aircraft Composite Repair Committee (CACRC). He has worked closely with Dr. Keith Armstrong on the development and subsequent production of carbon fiber/Nomex floor panels while at RRCM. This was recognized in 1994 when Dr. Armstrong and Mr. Bevan both received an award from Du Pont for their pioneering development work related to the application of Nornex honeycomb in aircraft flooring. Fibrelarn floor panels (now from Hexcel) also were qualified to the British Airways specification raised as the result of this work, and “these are now qualified by every aircraft manufacturer currently operating in the Western world.” [Quote taken from the Hexcel booklet, “Composite Materials for the Aerospace Industry,” May 2003.] In addition, Mr. Bevan has written and presented a number of papers on the fatigue properties of carbon fiber composites.