His funeral will be held at 3.15pm on Friday 4 August at Haycombe Cemetery, 209 Whiteway Rd, Bath, BA2 2RQ.

Professor Bryan Harris, former Head of the School of Materials Science, writes: “Shortly after my appointment to the Chair of Materials Science at Bath in 1976, the School was given the opportunity to appoint an additional lectureship, and we chose to strengthen the area of materials physics by appointing Darryl Almond.

Darryl was a solid state physicist who had obtained his PhD with Roland Dobbs at Lancaster and had subsequently spent a post-doctoral period working with John Rayne at Carnegie-Mellon in Pittsburgh, Dobbs and Rayne both being internationally recognised figures in the field of metal physics.

Darryl’s interests immediately chimed with those of Professor George Saunders of the School of Physics and led to collaboration between our two Schools.

Darryl was an excellent physicist, and the way he was able to develop our School's research profile was vital to the success we enjoyed. As sometime Head of School and as a research partner, I very much valued Darryl’s pragmatic approach to the solving of problems, both technical and social.

The range of his research interests expanded rapidly. He saw opportunities for collaborative research not only with his colleagues in Materials Science and Physics, but also with staff in other Bath schools — particularly Mechanical Engineering — and in other universities, particularly Bristol.

He also worked closely with Professor Tony West, a solid-state chemist formerly in Aberdeen and subsequently in Sheffield, and over the years, on the wider stage, he has collaborated fruitfully with academics in Canada, China, Italy and India.

His main research interests in recent years were non-destructive evaluation (NDE), particularly of composite materials (one of the Schools main research areas) and modelling of the electrical properties of non-metallic materials. His NDE research group, specialising in thermographic techniques, formed a part of the UK Research Centre in NDE.

Darryl’s publication list runs to over 300 articles and his work has been cited some 7,330 times (and counting) in other scientific publications — a formidable record.

Darryl was Director of the University of Bath Materials Research Centre and a member of both the UK Research Centre in Non-Destructive Evaluation and Bath Institute for Complex Systems.

A Fellow of the Institute of Physics, he was also Honorary Secretary for the Dielectrics Group at the Institute. He was also a Fellow of the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing.

He was awarded a Personal Chair in 1996, and became Professor Emeritus on his retirement from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 2014 and continued to play a very active part in research collaborations right up to the time of his death."

Darryl was an accomplished fast bowler and played for the University of Bath Venturers Cricket Club. He published work on the fluid dynamics of cricket ball swing including an evaluation of ball tampering.

He was Chair and Treasurer of Bathford Parish Hall Management Committee for many years, sang in Bathford Village Choir and was a leading light with Bathford Players.

We extend our sincere condolences to Lennie and their daughter, Caroline, and family.