Halmstad University HAL

The Functional Surfaces Research Group at Halmstad University has specialized in manufacturing and functional optimization of engineering surfaces using topography characterisation as a main tool. The group has 5 professors (whereof 3 visiting professors), 2 assistant professors, 1 associate professor and 7 PhD students working in both governmental- and industrially funded projects. Main application areas for projects are Automotive surfaces and Bioengineering surfaces. The group has a history of participating in the FP4 programmes Surfstand and Autosurf, where part of the foundation was made for the current coming 3D ISO standards in the field of Geometrical Product Specification. The group is internationally active and is a co-organiser of one of the main conferences in the field “Metrology and Properties of Engineering Surfaces”. Ongoing activities with MIT regarding engine surface optimization, the Fraunhofer IPT in Aachen regarding the polishing process, University of Huddersfield and Ecole Central de Lyon regarding surface characterisation are major examples of abroad research co-operations. Naturally the co-operation with Chalmers University is strong but also Lund University and Linköping University are strong national co-operator. The connections with the Swedish industry is very strong and Volvo Cars, Volvo Powertrain, Sandvik Tooling, Alfa Laval Thermo, Outokumpu Stainless, Scania, SSAB –Swedish Steel, Uddeholm Tooling, Daros Piston rings, are good examples of the major industrial co-operations. The research equipment is centred around hard- and software for surface topography characterisation. Annual turnover for the group is about 1 000 000 Euro.Halmstad University is currently also a partner in the Automated Polishing for the European Tooling Industry, poliMATIC (FP7-NMP-2009-SME-3) and mainly work with metrology and process control of polished functional surfaces and the Eurostars (FP7) project Controlling the surface nano-topography of polymer shaping tools (E!7096) NanoCon project.

Website: Halmstad University