University of Bolton
The University of Bolton is a nearly 200-year-old institution founded as the Bolton Mechanics Institute in 1825. Engineering has always been in our DNA and is still a major element of our daily activities.
We have the National Centre for Motorsport Engineering (NCME) offering undergraduate and post graduate degree courses specialising in Motorsport and Automotive performance engineering. Recently we have launched a new Centre for Advanced Manufacturing (CfAM) with specialist capability and expertise in additive manufacturing to support our other engineering schools; Mechanical, Electrical and Electronic, Biomedical and, Civils and Construction engineering. We also have the long-established Fire Materials Research Group specialising in research and development of fire-retardant materials. All areas offer undergraduate and post graduate degree programmes along with bespoke CPD activities.
CfAM has capability for additive manufacturing in both polymers and metals using technologies including laser powder bed fusion, bound metal deposition stereolithography and fused deposition modelling. As part of the Centre we also incorporate traditional manufacturing, CNC machining and composite material fabrication. There is also extensive materials testing including destructive and non-destructive, materials evaluation and computer simulation.
The Fire Materials Research group has been central to our research and knowledge exchange activities for 30 years and highly regarded in the field of flammability evaluation and flame retardancy of materials. The scope of current research areas includes textiles and fibre flammability and heat resistance, burning behaviour of composites, novel flame-retardant systems for bulk polymers, fire gas analysis, fire retardant mechanisms and associated modelling for demanding applications such as aerospace, maritime, land transport and protective textile areas.