The Bremen production engineer, Dr. Daniel Meyer, has been awarded the Otto Kienzle commemorative medal in recognition of his interdisciplinary research approach in the field of manufacturing technology. “Daniel Meyer’s interdisciplinary research approach is mould breaking: It marked the beginning of a completely new perspective on production engineering, especially in the area of cooling lubricants”, said Professor Eberhard Abele, President of the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Produktionstechnik (WGP) [Scientific society for production engineering], who presented Daniel Meyer with the medal. “Both at home and abroad, his scientific work is of significant industrial importance. His research has not only led to a better understanding of some of the basic principles involved, but also paved the way for the development of resource- and energy-efficient manufacturing processes that simultaneously bring increases in productivity.”
Interdisciplinary research on cooling lubricants
A biologist and doctor of production engineering, Daniel Meyer’s outstanding contribution to science was to move the microbial and chemical properties of cooling lubricants to the fore of research in the field. In addition to this, he greatly advanced interdisciplinary approaches to research on the peripheral-zone properties of components. “Thanks to the improved understanding of cooling lubricants and the mechanisms involved in making modifications to materials, we are now able to plan manufacturing processes on a more scientific level”, says Meyer, who is currently leading a subproject on process signatures embedded in the Transregional Collaborative Research Center CRC TRR 136. “Although experience-based processing functions quite smoothly in most areas, it can still be improved on further. By understanding the mechanisms involved when materials are subjected to chemical, thermal or mechanical influences, we are subsequently able to plan processes to trigger exactly the desired reactions.” Building on such new insights, the junior researcher has made a major contribution to better understanding the dimensions involved in the use of cooling lubricants and also opened up possibilities for boosting manufacturing productivity.
New processes in peripheral-zone hardening
Another achievement leading to Meyer being awarded the Otto Kienzle Commemorative Medal was the development of a hybrid process for hardening the peripheral zones of metal components. The peripheral zones of heavy-duty work pieces like turbine blades, crankshaft gears or ball bearings have to withstand particularly high stress and have to be hardened accordingly. During the mechanical process of cryogenic cool rolling, the work pieces are sprayed with dry ice and subsequently hardened. This substitutes conventional thermal hardening processes in furnaces that consume great amounts of energy—and it also shortens the process chain. “The result is a considerable saving in time and energy. Components still reach the desired level of hardening—or even higher. And all this functions within significantly more energy-efficient manufacturing processes, especially in the case of smaller production batches”, says Meyer. Cryogenic cool rolling is based on transferring natural-scientific interrelations onto the modification of materials in production-engineering processes. It fittingly reflects the steps along the prizewinner’s scientific career.
The prizewinner
Since 2008, Dr.-Ing.Dipl.-Biol. Daniel Meyer has been working as a research associate in a research group led by Professor Ekkard Brinksmeier. The group works in the field of manufacturing technology in the University of Bremen’s Faculty of Production Engineering. Meyer leads the junior research group “Surface Functionalization in Manufacturing Processes” and is senior engineer in the main department of manufacturing technology belonging to the Institute of Materials Sciences. In 2011, Meyer became a member of CIRP Research Affiliates in 2011, a network of the world’s leading junior scientists in the field of production engineering. Since 2014 he is a member of the Arab German Young Academy (AGYA), an organization for the promotion of interdisciplinary and intercultural research. Meyer has already received several awards for his scientific achievements, including the F.W. Taylor Medal of the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP) in 2013, as well as the Heinz Mayer Leibnitz Prize awarded by the German Research Foundation in 2014. In addition to this, in 2014 he was also voted one of Germany’s 40 most promising junior scientists by “Capital” magazine.
The Award
The WGP has been conferring this award for outstanding achievements in the field of production engineering on young post-doc engineers every year since 1970. The medal is in memory of Professor Otto Kienzle, one of the outstanding personalities in the former “Hochschulgruppe Fertigungstechnik” [University group manufacturing technology], the precursor to WGP. Daniel Meyer is the first Bremen post-doc to receive the honor of being awarded the prize.
For further information, you are welcome to contact:
University of Bremen
Faculty of Production Engineering
Carolin Walter M. A. (Science Communication)
email: cwalterprotect me ?!iwt-bremenprotect me ?!.de
Phone: +49 421 218-513 74
