Senior Lecturer
University of Salford, United Kingdom

Presentation Title: ” Large Airliner Design Project Management”

Thurai Rahulan was born in Sri Lanka in 1958 and was awarded the BSc degree with First Class Honours in Mechanical Engineering Science in 1979 followed by the PhD in 1984 from Salford University in the United Kingdom. He commenced full time employment in March 1983 designing aircraft active control systems on research programmes funded by the British Ministry of Defence.

Thurai then spent a few years with the Advanced Engineering Group at Jaguar Cars Limited in Coventry during which time he was involved in the design and development of new generation road vehicle suspension systems. After returning to Salford University in 1990 to teach aeronautics, he liaised with a number of other educational institutions, professional bodies and industry. He has served on the Council of the Royal Aeronautical Society, been the Chairman of the Association of Aerospace Universities, the Secretary of the International Society of Multiphysics and a member of the Committee of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Aerospace North West for over a decade.

Thurai is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, an Associate Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and has served on the Executive Board of the Engineering Professors’ Council in the United Kingdom since 2013. His teaches mainly aircraft design and flight mechanics to both undergraduates and postgraduates, and has published a number of technical papers. He currently takes an interest in air accident investigations, improving safety of helicopters, solar-powered long-endurance uninhabited air vehicles, and design of safer airliners with greater fuel efficiency for the future.