SMART Surfaces industry forum hosted by ECOROLL AG to mark its 10th anniversary
On 6 December 2023, the SMART Surfaces industry forum, which was founded exactly 10 years ago, met for its 20th working group meeting in Celle. As a founding member, it was a pleasure for ECOROLL AG to welcome the participants for the first time. Dr Benjamin Bergmann, Head of Manufacturing Technologies at the Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW) at Leibniz Universität Hannover and Managing Director of the Industry Forum, joined Dr Oliver Maiß, Head of Development at ECOROLL AG, in welcoming everyone on St Nicholas' morning.
As befits a milestone birthday, the welcome was followed by a short review of the past years by Christian Wege and a keynote speech by Prof. Dr Bernd Breidenstein on the measurement of residual stresses in coatings.
The SMART Surfaces industry forum has, as the review showed, remained true to its founding promise to investigate the production of functional surfaces on a pre-competitive basis. Many of the projects from recent years did not focus on individual processes, but always considered the entire process chain; for example, one of the first projects on the coating of cylinder liners and forming dies. Thanks to the broad range of participating companies, it was possible to analyse the production of geometrically defined machining (MAPAL), honing/superfinishing (Supfina), deep rolling (ECOROLL) and coating (Oerlikon) in this project. The process steps were carried out in different sequences in order to achieve the best possible coating adhesion.
In addition to these more fundamental projects, very specific questions were also put to the test, including how the potential of deep rolling can be utilised in lightweight construction and what influence surfaces have on noise emissions in bearings for electromobility.
As with all working group meetings, the three current projects were presented and discussed in detail. From ECOROLL AG's point of view, the projects are of a very high scientific standard without drifting too far into theory. It is clear that the institute is concerned with application-oriented research and always focusses on the benefits for companies. This is one of the reasons why we are still happy to be part of the working group.
The highlight for the participants was the tour of the technology centre and production at ECOROLL AG. Over the past 10 years, the working group meetings have always taken place alternately in Hanover or at one of the participating companies. This unique insight into the production facilities of other companies is what makes such a working group so charming for everyone. And so we were happy to open our doors on this day and give a small insight into the world of ECOROLL AG.