Dr Lawrence Cook
Development Engineer at bigHead
PhD, Cranfield University
MDes, Industrial Product Design, Coventry University
About Lawrence
Lawrence is a Development Engineer at bigHead, part of Bossard Group. Lawrence works with customers, commercial teams, and engineering specialists to translate application challenges into practical fastening solutions.
With experience in composite materials dating back to 2005, and composite fastening since 2014, Lawrence is based at Cranfield Innovation Centre and regularly visits bigHead’s factory near Bournemouth.
Areas of expertise
- Composite materials
- Composite fastening
- Conceptual design
- Technical illustration
- Mechanical testing
Engineering approach
Lawrence believes that the best technical solutions start with understanding the application, not the product. His approach focuses on identifying the customer’s design objectives, constraints, and risks before recommending fastening strategies or development activities.
Lawrence works by connecting customer requirements with engineering verification. This may involve reviewing application loads, material behaviour, manufacturing constraints, and testing data to develop solutions that are both technically robust and commercially practical.
Sitting between customer-facing teams and technical specialists allows Lawrence to bring together application knowledge, testing insights, and engineering expertise to support informed decision-making and guidance throughout the development process.
Experience
- Since 2018, Development Engineer at bigHead
- 4 years as Research Fellow within the Composites Centre at Cranfield University
- Academic Supervisor for Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with bigHead Bonding Fasteners Ltd
- EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Composites – Structural Joints using Novel Embedded Inserts
- THE FUTURE COMPOSITES MANUFACTURING HUB – Layer by layer curing
- 4 years as Applications Engineer within R&D at Scott Bader
- Development of Crestapol 1250LV urethane acrylate resin which played a role in winning JEC Innovation Awards through strategic partnership with Axon Automotive
- Doctoral research at Cranfield University, sponsored by the UK Civil Aviation Authority, leading to the publication of CAA Paper 2013/3 “Reliability of Damage Detection in Advanced Composite Aircraft Structures”