Fastening Points

At bigHead, collaboration is our blueprint. From our beginnings 50 years ago, we’ve worked closely with designers, engineers and composite material specialists to develop fastening solutions that truly meet our customers’ needs.

And, as composite materials evolve and production methods advance, so does our commitment to staying ahead. The need for ever smarter, ever more adaptable fastening solutions is growing.

Our philosophy? Fastening well means thinking holistically. Fasteners are never an ‘add-on’ – they’re integral to successful design, manufacture and assembly. Getting that right is complex.

This is why we contribute our expertise to academic research as well as cutting-edge commercial projects. By sharing knowledge, we’re proud to support innovation in the field. And it’s a two-way street, because through these partnerships we explore new ways to evolve our products.

Composite materials expertise: bigHead at Cranfield Innovation Centre

Nestled in the rolling green Bedfordshire fields is Cranfield Innovation Centre, home of our composite fastening innovation team. It’s right next door to Cranfield University, where we have close and long-standing links with the Enhanced Composites and Structures Centre.

Cranfield has established graduate programmes on applied research into composite materials and their manufacturing processes. Over the years, we’ve supported a range of MSc projects here, including:

• Adhesive bondline thickness control and its role in stress redistribution
• Evaluating anti-corrosion treatments on carbon fibre composites
• Exploring the adhesive compatibility of different anti-corrosion treatments
• Fastening technologies for automotive composites – resulting in a fastening selection framework we still use today

The practical experience gained through these projects continues to inform our guidance on corrosion mitigation strategies for embedded fasteners, and on adhesive selection.

Oli at Cranfield Tech Park

What’s more, three former Cranfield students have joined bigHead, including Dr Lawrence Cook and Oli Le Marquand-Brown, bringing valuable research and experience into our innovation team.

A recent Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), funded by Innovate UK, also gave us the opportunity to expand our expertise. Three MSc student projects explored embedding and material flow in sheet moulding compound (SMC), including investment in lab-scale tooling.

Through our involvement, we created a capability for developing and demonstrating resin ingress sealing and shut-off strategies – allowing us to make our fasteners more integration-ready than ever.

Global fastening insights with RWTH Aachen

At Germany’s Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA), part of RWTH Aachen University, researchers have been exploring the integration of bigHead fasteners into tailored fibre placement (TFP) preforms.

The process has huge potential for high-quality constructions to be realised economically and reliably at the same time.

A TFP preform part from the research project with ITA

We supported the project with fasteners, technical input, and a visit to the team for a detailed exchange of ideas. That kind of hands-on involvement means we can take research learnings and feed them straight into our product refinement.

Learn more about the research

Reference: Schwab, M., Oppitz, S., Biche, W.: Anbindung von Inserts in Faserverbundkunststoffbauteile. ATZ Prod. 7, p. 58-63 (2020)

Supporting tomorrow’s engineers: bigHead and Formula Student

We love supporting Formula Student teams around the world. Over the last few years we’ve provided fastening samples and technical guidance to teams in India, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

Formula Student tasks teams to design, build and race a single-seater race car, usually as part of a degree-level project. It’s seen by the motorsport industry as the standard for engineering graduates to meet, transitioning them from university to the workplace.

The DUT13 from Formula Student Team Delft. Creator: DUT Racing Operations, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

The student teams face unique design and assembly challenges, often working with composite materials in fast-paced, resource-limited environments. Our fasteners give them flexibility: enabling secure, repeatable connections without the need for heavy tools or large investments in specialist machinery.

The Shell Eco-marathon, for example, challenges students to build ultra-efficient prototype vehicles with game-changing energy efficiency results. In 2022, Team ETA from India built an incredible battery-electric prototype vehicle, with a carbon fibre monocoque body. bigHead composite panel fasteners helped them hit ambitious weight targets while maintaining structural integrity.

Go team KTH!

This year, we’re supporting Team KTH, whose new car, Brinell DeV19, is competing at Formula Student events in Germany and Austria.

Speaking about bigHead fasteners, they said:

“We use these versatile fasteners as nuts and bolts in combination with carbon fiber composites and metals. Whether laminated into parts or bonded later, they enable strong, reliable connections that are essential to our car’s performance.”

We can’t wait to see how DeV19 performs on race day and we’re excited for what Team KTH goes on to achieve.

KTH’s Brinell DeV19

Collaborate with us

Engineering challenges are rarely solved in isolation. We’re grateful for all our collaborations – they keep us learning and let us support innovation where it’s happening.

If you’re working with composite materials and looking for fastening solutions that work seamlessly across your design, manufacturing and assembly process, we’d love to hear from you.

Contact us