Successfully completed doctorate
Already on 16 December 2022, Dr Erik Saborowski successfully defended his dissertation thesis entitled „Relationship between metal surface structure and composite strength using the example of thermally joined thermoplastic-metal composites“. Finally, the ceremony at the professorship took place at the beginning of April, during which the newly minted doctors traditionally have to „endure a few games in gowns and doctoral hats and sashes“.
In his work, Dr Erik Saborowski investigated the relationship between the structure of metal surfaces and the bond strength of thermally joined thermoplastic-metal composites. To this end, he mathematically demonstrated for the adhesion mechanisms of material, force and form closure on a minimal example that various surface characteristics (true surface, structure density, aspect ratio, undercuts, substructures) are related to the bond strength. Based on this, he selected standardised roughness parameters and the fractal dimension as surface parameters and formulated related hypotheses on adhesion-promoting structural features. These were experimentally tested on aluminium in combination with polyamide 6 and polypropylene. In this way, it was possible to successfully explain the level of bond strength on the basis of the surface structure and, in part, to quantitatively link it to this with a high correlation.
The „true defence“ tasks that Dr Saborowski had to perform in front of his colleagues were of course of a completely different nature and ranged from search and estimation tasks to audience polls that asked for knowledge about the candidate himself.
The dissertation thesis is available in the Qcosa portal of the TU Chemnitz under the following link: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:ch1-qucosa2-828695
Image:
Dr Erik Saborowski during the graduation ceremony at the Chair of WOT
16.5.2023 – Personnel of the professorship ( thomas.grund@mb… )
