VTT (Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus)

RTD Perfomer
Contact Person: Jukka Paro
Homepage: www.vtt.fi


General:
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is a government organisation. It is the largest public applied research activity in Finland with a staff of 2900 and turnover in the order of 280M. As a multi-technological research organisation VTT provides technology solutions and innovation services to a large range of customer sectors, which include, Energy, ICT, process industry and environment, Machines and vehicles. Its key technology fields include Applied materials, Energy, ICT Industrial systems, Micro-technologies and electronics, Business and Innovation Research; with a particular emphasis on materials engineering design solutions. Through its wide expertise and international scientific and technology networks, VTT can produce information, upgrade technology knowledge, and create business intelligence and value added for its stakeholders. In the past 20 years, VTT has participated in more than 100 European R&D Framework Programme projects, within various thematic programmes.

Expertise: VTT has wide expertise in materials and their properties, and manufacturing of materials and components. A key area of this knowledge relates to tribology, which is applicable to the abrasive tool development. VTT’s knowledge on and research resources for Material science and analyses, powder processing and powder metallurgy, machining and welding, and wear of materials and tools will be utilised. As such, the identification of optimum materials, design of tooling, development of manufacturing processes for their application and subsequent testing; are all areas in which VTT has the experience and ability to support.

Role in project: In the SmartDress project, VTT’s main effort will be in the development of the abrasive tool for dressing. VTT will lead WP2 in the development of the prototype dressing tool. This will involve candidate materials identification, review and selection; followed by design and manufacturing of the abrasive tooling. VTT will also support WP4 and WP5 to integrate and test the full prototype system; with optimisation of the dresser tool materials/design if required.

Benefits expected: By participating in innovative research for solving current EU manufacturing problems, VTT will further its knowledge and understanding in the field of applied tribology; whilst supporting companies within the EU community; hopefully promoting future collaborative work and support.

Key personnel:
Jouko Virta, M.Sc. (Tech), Senior Research Scientist, has worked at VTT since 1979 in the field of Heat treatment technology of metals, Metal working, Powder metallurgy, and Casting. He has involved several national and international projects as a researcher and project manager dealing with Heat Treatment, Fine Grained Steels, Metal Matrix Composites, High Strength Copper Alloys, Metal Injection Moulding, Spray Forming, Hot Isostatic Pressing, and Die Pressing and Sintering. In SmartDress he will be responsible especially in selection of the materials for, and the manufacturing methods of the abrasive dressing tool.

Jukka Paro, D.Sc. (Tech.), Senior research scientist at VTT since 2001 has 25 years of experience in national and EU R&D projects in cutting, and production engineering as a research scientist and project manager. He has worked in national project of micromachining, European FP5 projects ‘In-process structured hard coatings for micro-lubrication’ and ‘Environmental Product Lifecycle Management for building competitive machine tools’, and studied precision machining of hybrid damped structures of the Compact Linear Collider Study at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. He has more than 50 publications. His scientific interests include cutting theory and wear mechanisms of cutting tools. In SmartDress he will take care of the initial testing of the abrasive/cutting materials for the dressing tool, and design the geometry and construction the abrasive/cutting dressing tool.