The M18 general meeting of Hippocamp project was held on 26th March in Brussels. The meeting was planned in order to present various achievements of the first 18 months to the Project Technical Advisor, Marcel Dierselhuis and Project Officer, Gustav Winroth.

DIAD GROUP took the opportunity of the Ice Series 2015 - International Competition that took place on 21st and 22nd of February in Cervinia (Matterhorn) - to present the running R&D activities on the development of new advanced materials for the automotive sector and the Hippocamp project. The races on ice are a well known bench tests for innovation in the automotive powertrain and chassis, being a critical environment for temperatures shock and stress on the transmission parts. A lot of components are tested and approved in this extreme field, so this is a good environment to promote the Hippocamp innovations. The Citroen DS3 chosen for the tests is a popular car that increase the dissemination efficiency and the idea of future exploitation of the project results on large numbers products. This car will be equipped with a special Hippocamp gearshaft that it is expected to be able to reduce the vibrations in the range 30-200Hz of about 30%, increasing the gearbox life and comfort.

Tissueworld – celebrated from 17th-19th March in Barcelona - is one of the most important exhibitions related to de pulp and paper industry. Different companies working in different areas such as Automation, Chemicals, Consultants, Converting Machinery, Converting Supplies; Drying, Dust Control and Dispenser Systems; Engineering Services, Environmental Services, Paper Machine Accessories, Paper Machinery, Tissue Manufacturers take place in this exhibition. The exhibition makes possible to explore future sustainable growth prospects for the tissue industry, meet key industry players and solution providers, join to an expert panel of speakers who share their thoughts on how tissue players can remain competitive and take advantage of the various networking opportunities during the event to expand business networks. Lantier had its own booth (F250) where apart from its range of products, the Hippocamp project was presented, as well as the new trade mark for the monitoring system developed within the Hippocamp Project, iCrepe.

On September 15th 2014, Qilin Fu from PLASMATRIX brought HiPPOCAMP project to EMRS (European Material Research Society) fall meeting in Warsaw. Founded in 1983, the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) now has more than 3,200 members from industry, government, academia and research laboratories, who meet regularly to debate recent technological developments of functional materials. On the presentation, Qilin made a thorough introduction of HiPPOCAMP’s concept and demonstrated its latest achievement. The audiences are mostly coming from material science talking about crystallographic structures etc and had a hard time to understand the underlying physical phenomenon. However, the demonstration part of the presentation was very interesting as commented by the audiences.

We are happy to announce that Hippocamp project's youtube channel has been launched! Link to youtube channel

From 21-23 October 2014, the Digimat Users Meeting was held in Rome. Universität Stuttgart was there presenting the Hippocamp Project, with the simulation of the damping properties of innovative HiPIMS (High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering) materials with Digimat. This multi-scale simulation tool has been tested to model the microstructure of such high-damping coating materials. A metal matrix composite made of carbon nitride with copper inclusions has been the first material to be investigated. The ultimate goal is to predict the influence of various material parameters of the composite on its damping potential in order to avoid the need of time-consuming and costly test runs. Digimat is regarded as a strong candidate for achieving this goal.

Qilin Fu disseminated HIPPOCAMP project’s concept and initial results on DMMS (Centre for Design & Management of Manufacturing Systems) members meeting on 2nd -3rd December 2014. Participants to the meeting includes most of research groups in academies and manufacturing industries (Sandvik, SAAB, SECO Tools, SKF, SCANIA, VOLVO, etc.) within Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark). The concept of HIPPOCAMP and its bottom up approach to synthesize nano-sized grains in a coating material has opened the discussion on the topic of high dynamic stiffness materials and high hardness resilient coatings. The results achieved in the early stage of the project has impressed the audience on how to correlate nano-material research with modern metal cutting industry. A milling tool with 6 times overhang has showed its potential to be improved by HIPPOCAMP’s nano damping material. R&D responsible persons in the industry put their expectations with further improvement which will speed up the marketing process of such technology.

SORALUCEcelebrated its annual TECHNOLOGY DAYS 2014 from the 12th to 15th November. This year, the event took place atBIMATEC SORALUCE GmbH, its Technology Center in Limburg (Germany). The TECHNOLOGY DAYS 2014 consisted of showing to its customers’ technology behind the machines and new developments applied tomilling, boringand turning machines. These developments will be showcased in real machining conditions by the best specialists in these technologies.

From 15-19 September 2014, the 14^th International Conference on Plasma Surface Engineering was held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. The aim of Ionautics was to show their technology to potential customers as well as promote the HIPPOCAMP project.

From 16-20 September 2014, the AMB international exhibition for metalworking was held in Stuttgart, Germany. AMB is one of the leading industry trade fairs in the even years and is one of the top 5 trade fairs worldwide for metal-cutting technology. SORALUCE-BIMATEC showcased its expertise in manufacturing and the Hippocamp project was promotioned in its stand. Every two years approximately 1,350 exhibitors from almost 30 countries showcase the latest developments in machine tools, precision tools and relevant periphery for metal machining. Over 90,000 visitors are interested in this offering in the centre of Europe's leading high-tech region Stuttgart.