The 2010 Hagen Symposium: A review of the annual meeting of the German speaking PM community
Some 55 exhibitors attended the Hagen Symposium this year
Organised by Fachverband Pulvermetallurgie (FPM), the trade association of the PM industry in Germany and its German-speaking neighbours, the 29th Hagener Symposium was held at the town’s ‘Stadthalle’, a multipurpose hall which also hosts regional music and entertainment events, on 25-26 November 2010. The conference attracted more than 230 delegates and offered a one and a half day programme of technical presentations covering almost all areas of PM.
Since its beginnings more than 30 years ago this annual conference has been regularly held in Hagen. Most of the work for organising the conference and editing the proceedings over this time has been in the hands of Hans Kolaska, and the proceedings that are published every year in the form of a bound book represent a unique collection of German language PM literature.
The conference is well regarded by many European powder metallurgists because of its central location and low cost. It is often, therefore, a good opportunity for those engineers who are not generally permitted to attend international conferences to meet with their colleagues from industry and learn new ideas.
A highlight of the event is the dinner on the evening of the first day, which many participants regard as even more important than the technical presentations. Renewing friendships with colleagues, and the sense of being a member of the PM community, strengthens the ties to our technology.
The accompanying exhibition featured products and services from 55 exhibitors. Raw materials suppliers, press and furnace manufacturers, suppliers of testing equipment, and research institutions offered their products and services.
The 2010 Skaupy Award
A key part of the symposium is the annual presentation of the Skaupy Award. This is the most prestigious honour that the German PM industry has to bestow upon powder metallurgists who have made significant contributions in the field of powder metallurgy. It is named after Franz Skaupy, the scientist who in 1936 first published the transformation of metal powder into solid bodies by pressing and sintering. He called this product metal ceramics (Metallkeramik), and Skaupy is regarded as the inventor of modern powder metallurgy technology.
Professor Herbert Danninger (Technical University Vienna),
Dr Michael Krehl (PMG Füssen),Hans Kolaska (Fachverband
Pulvermetallurgie), and 2010 Skaupy Prize recipient
Professor Bernd Kieback (Technical University Dresden/
Fraunhofer IFAM Dresden) (photo courtesy Fachverband
Pulvermetallurgie)
The winner of the Skaupy Award 2010 was Prof. Bernd Kieback, head of the Institute for Materials Science at the Technical University of Dresden and the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials (IFAM) in Dresden, Germany. In his laudatory speech Prof. Herbert Danninger outlined Prof Kieback’s life and career to-date. Born in communist East Germany in 1953, Prof Kieback studied crystal physics at the University of Kharkov in the Soviet Union, now Ukraine, under another famous pioneer of PM, Yakov Evseevich Geguzin. He elaborated his doctor’s thesis under Prof. Werner Schatt at the Technical University of Dresden, where he received his PhD in 1982 and later became the successor of Prof. Schatt with the chair for materials science. He perpetuates the long tradition of PM in Dresden.
Following tradition, all Skaupy Award winners are obliged to deliver a lecture on a topic of their choice at the Hagen Symposium. Prof Kieback spoke about nanostructured materials produced by Powder Metallurgy, and a full report will appear in a forthcoming ipmd.net newsletter.
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