Centre of Excellence in Energetic Materials (CoEEM)

The following obituary for Professor Ian Wallace was written by his friend and colleague Professor Adam S Cumming, University of Edinburgh, and was published in the journal Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics (PEP) on 31st August 2026 (free access: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/prep.70272).

We are sad to announce the death of a former member of the PEP Editorial Advisory Board and one of the UK’s leading energetics specialists after a long career.

Ian was born in Gourock, Scotland, and educated in Greenock and at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, where his thesis was on The Formation of Oxides of Nitrogen in Methane-Air Flames. He worked at Royal Ordnance Bishopton, focussing on gun propellants, then part of the UK MOD, before moving south to continue work on many aspects of energetic materials.

I first met him more than 30 years ago, when he joined the Chief Inspector of Naval Ordnance (CINO), based in Bath, and his organisation was funding work on vulnerability and insensitivity in explosives. He later moved to the Ordnance Board in 1997 when CINO was merged with them and later became the first Director of the new Defence Ordnance Safety Group in 2000. While at CINO, he focused some research on the risks to naval munitions from intrusion, usually while handling on ships. This led to the work on the Spigot Intrusion Test, which, while useful, showed that the problem was more complex, but led to a greater understanding of delayed detonation and the study of XDT—an important part of IM research.

This career path meant that he focused on service problems and their correction, but this also meant that he became involved in assessing the longer-term needs of research. As he mentioned in a PEP editorial in 2023, his background, like mine, was in a world where the whole life cycle for munitions was integrated so that new developments were assessed and used to improve the performance, safety and suitability for service of munitions. He regretted the fragmentation

He was actively engaged in the advisory committee overseeing research. This Terminal Effects and Energetic Materials Advisory Committee was chaired by Prof John Field of Cambridge and included academia, industry and all parts of MOD. There were several robust discussions on what needed funding and how it could be employed, and the advice was not always followed. However, Ian developed and extended his awareness of the breadth of possibilities, and this supported his move to Cranfield University in 2001, first as Professor of Explosives Chemistry and later as Pro Vice Chancellor of the Shrivenham site. He was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board at PEP for several years and always contributed to the discussions, seeing the importance of an international journal for benchmarking national work and learning from others.

He remained in Shrivenham later as an emeritus professor but also took on the role of chair of the UK Nuclear Research Advisory Council in 2020. This reflected his interest and enthusiasm for seeing research supported properly. It also meant increasing involvement with the USA but reduced his involvement in the conventional programme.

In his semi-retirement, he also found time to resume research, and throughout his career he had championed the potential of chemiluminescence as an analytical method for assessing the stability of nitrocellulose and of propellants based on NC. He led a Cranfield group in this area, and in 2025 they published ‘The Use of Chemiluminescence Nitrogen Oxides Analysis for the Study of the Decomposition of Nitrocellulose’ in PEP (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/prep.12040). This research had attracted considerable interest at the Nitrocellulose and Heat Flow Calorimetry symposium the same year.

As he emphasised in his editorial, the UK and elsewhere have a need to invest in Energetics and in developing the experts who could ensure that there was continuing support for the future. Cranfield was one means of doing this, and he supported a Centre of Expertise there to help. A positive step and one of many, but still requiring both vision and resources to make it work. He was frustrated at the slow progress.

Ian was a good colleague and one with whom a discussion was invigorating and usually positive. His position was always based on both experience and information, which he was able to develop and change in the light of new results. He also tried to make time to advise and support others. This made him an effective supporter of Munitions research, and of the need to ensure that there was an independent UK Energetics capability and community. He fought long and hard for that, and he will be missed.