Hittech Group establishes material science course at TU Delft
May 1, 2024
To address a lack of sufficient material knowledge to thoroughly assess the impact of their application in high-tech equipment, Hittech Group, based in Den Haag, the Netherlands, has established a training course aimed at designers and engineers and taught at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at TU Delft.
Pieter Kappelhof, Hittech’s Director of Technology, is one of the architects of the course and explained, “Material science in the education of engineers and designers is key to the application, development, and production of high-tech products and systems. Target markets influence the choice of materials like steel, aluminium or plastic through their specific applications, such as cryogenics for labs, cleanliness for semicon, ISO standards for medical and vacuum and dynamics for space. Their integral designs determine whether production will be optimal and whether products will be successful.”
He continued, “This sound basis of material science in the education of engineers is of the utmost importance as they will be the future developers of these products and systems. We developed this base by taking the students through the system engineering process and focusing on material science and production technologies in the system development process. Then, we take the students through the parts production, treatment, joining, and assembly stages with thirteen showcases presented by experts from the industry and explained in detail by qualified university teachers.”