Chair of Materials and Surface Engineering
Materials and Surface Engineering
Chair of Materials and Surface Engineering 

Successful promotion at WOT


On 05.12.24, Mr Bernd Schilder, M.Sc., defended his dissertation topic „Development of a low-oxygen coating process for the production of thermally sprayed, heavy-duty cylinder liners“ in front of a large, interested audience as an external doctoral student of Prof. Lampke. He was awarded the grade „very good“ for his overall performance.

Dr Bernd Schilder works in the Powertrain Process Development department at Mercedes-Benz AG, Stuttgart. In his working group, he focusses on the coating and finishing of surfaces. His speciality and the subject of his work are coating and finishing processes for cylinder liners in modern combustion engines.

Internal combustion engines will be used in mobile and stationary systems for the foreseeable future because they have a high power density and outstanding reliability. They are still subject to high requirements in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. In order to keep emissions low, the heavy grey cast iron liners in passenger car combustion engines are often replaced by thin iron-based cylinder liners. Suitable coating and treatment processes are used to make these surfaces resistant to all tribological and corrosive stresses. There is also a considerable need to make a consistent contribution to lightweight construction in the drive train.

This is where Dr Schilder's work comes in. His motivation is to increase the efficiency of conventional drive concepts so that they can also contribute to more sustainable individual mobility. With the thermal spray coatings he has improved, it is possible to reduce friction losses between pistons and cylinder liners by up to 50 % across the entire surface. The challenge was to further develop the manufacturing process technology in a targeted manner using suitable materials, the performance of which had to be demonstrated through simulations and experimental research.

In addition to Prof Thomas Lampke, Chemnitz University of Technology, who also supervised the thesis, Prof Kai Möhwald from Leibniz Universität Hannover was the supervisor. Prof Jonas Hensel, TU Chemnitz, supervised the doctoral procedure.

Picture: Prof. Kai Möhwald, Leibniz Universität Hannover (left), Prof. Thomas Lampke (2nd from right) and Prof. Jonas Hensel (right) were the first to congratulate the newly qualified doctoral engineer, Dr Bernd Schilder.

20.12.2024 – Personnel of the professorship ( )

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