Vacature - PhD in Tribology: Steel surfaces with enhanced tactile feel.

Have you ever thought of creating your own surface out of stainless steel? We are looking for a researcher who has that dream and is willing to find the ways and means to create new sheet surfaces with predefined feel like soft, smooth or silky. Designing the tactile feel in daily interaction with steel products will directly increase the customer satisfaction: people feel more happy using steel products! A steel surface finish with a designed feel is a major breakthrough in the scientific community dealing with tribology, psychology of touch and contact mechanics of steel surface. The knowledge intensive technology development can serve as a start for new scientific developments in the future with respect to the predicting parameters for human-steel sheet interactions.

Application of the research
The relative importance of the surface roughness of steel sheet is well recognized by the leading steel manufacturers. It is well known that surface texturing can be used as a means for improving the performance of components exposed to friction and wear. A surface finish with a soft silky feel has a high potential to increase sales within the domestic and automotive appliances domains. While current knowledge on the relation between contact mechanics, tribology and human tactile perception is relatively limited.

Objective and tasks
The objective of this PhD project is to produce steel sheet with pre-defined human perception of the surface roughness in an economic, clean and safe way, including:
Establishing a relation between surface geometrical features and human touch for steel sheet material;
Developing of models that predict the interaction of the sheet during its use.

You are expected to do a combination of advanced predictive simulations and experimental work on skin – roughness interactions, aimed at understanding friction at the interface. A translation to touch is done with panel testing.

Participating parties
The research is supported by a well equipped European consortium (including Acerinox, Tata Steel, Swerea IVF AB, Tekniker and University of Twente), focussed on the development of innovative steel surfaces. Production capacity at the industrial partners is allocated to actually produce steel sheet surfaces with the designed texture at the end of the project. As a PhD student of the Skin Tribology group of the University of Twente, you have all the tools available to perform tribological research at world class level in a stimulating scientific environment.

You are a highly motivated, enthusiastic and fluent English speaking researcher with an MSc degree in mechanical engineering, applied physics or chemical engineering or in a closely related discipline, with theoretical as well as experimental skills and some knowledge on Tribology. A background in bio-tribology or metal forming, especially cold rolling or forging, is very welcome.

We offer scientific development on a multidisciplinary subject. Successful applicants will be appointed on a 4 year contract as a PhD researcher. The salary scale starts at €2042 gross per month for the first year and extends to a maximum of € 2612 gross per month in the fourth year (in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities). Additionally, the University of Twente provides excellent facilities for professional and personal development, a holiday allowance (amounts to 8%), an end-of-year bonus (amounts to 8,3%) and a number of additional benefits.

The University of Twente. We stand for life sciences and technology. High tech and human touch. Education and research that matter. New technology which drives change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university in the Netherlands; divided over six faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. The University of Twente has a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out pioneering research.

The Faculty of Engineering Technology (CTW) is one of the six University of Twente's faculties. CTW combines Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Industrial Design Engineering. Our faculty has approximately 1800 bachelor's and master's students, 300 employees and 150 PhD candidates. The faculty is organized in a matrix: the departments cooperatively conduct the educational programmes and participate in interdisciplinary research projects, programmes and the following research institutes: IMPACT, MIRA, CTIT, IBR and IGS.