1.1 The teaching activities and functions a) Our programme group has a strong teaching record and has so far prepared numerous different courses, 16 of which are currently a part of curriculums at the University of Ljubljana. We thought/teach these courses at three different faculties: Mechanical engineering, Mathematics and Physics, and Natural Sciences (Materials). Among the most important and continuously-running courses are Tribology, Contact engineering, Lubricants and recently Nanotechnology. We teach courses at all three degree levels (undergraduate, master and doctor). b) Prof. Kalin is also the initiator and coordinator of the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Joint European Master programme “TRIBOS - Tribology of surfaces and Interfaces”, which obtained funding from the EC EACEA in amount of 4.5 Mio€ for 5 years. This unique international programme in Tribology is established together with University of Leeds, Luleå University of Technology and Coimbra University. Among 30 EMMC programmes, which involve the members of the University of Ljubljana (50.000 students), Prof. Kalin is the only coordinator of such European joint programme at the whole University. The programme has also been accredited by national accreditation body NAKVIS and Ministry of Education in 2013 and, thus, we have established a completely new European Joint Master programme in Tribology of surfaces and Interfaces at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. The first generation of students from 11 countries world-wide is currently attending second semester in Ljubljana. c) The members of our Programme group (most notably Prof. Kalin as its leader) were actively involved in almost all possible Committees at the Faculty (Research and international cooperation, Quality assurance, Promotion and awards, Specialisation, Master studies, Research activities) and Senate (a decisive governing body of Faculty). Moreover, since 2008-2012 prof. Kalin was elected a representative of the Faculty of mechanical engineering in the committee for University student’s awards at the University of Ljubljana. He also served as a Vice-Dean for Research and International collaboration in period 2007-2011. Currently, he is again appointed as a Vice-Dean, but this time for Master and Doctor study (2013- ). This makes prof. Kalin one of the most involved, dedicated and experienced professors at the Faculty of Mechanical engineering, in spite of being the youngest full professor at the Faculty. d) Moreover, our Programme group members are also involved in professors’ promotions and habilitations in other Universities in Europe (France, UK, Sweden), India, Israel, as well as the USA. 1.2 Mentoring students and PhD students a) The members of the Programme group have mentored 95 BSc and MSc students in the period of 2009-2014. Four of our students have received student’s awards for the best student theses: Prešeren award of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Moreover, one of them obtained also an award from company Trimo, which supports the best graduate students. This shows our Programme group’s dedication and high quality mentoring and research work with students already at the graduate and master degree level. b) Moreover, our Programme group members are/have overall mentored 18 PhD students in the last 5 years. In this time, 9 students had finished their PhD degrees and 9 are currently involved in the PhD study in our group, 1 at TU Wien, where Prof. Kalin is co-mentor. Our PhD students are sponsored in different ways: by the government (ARRS scholarship), companies (direct industrial funding) and from EC Marie Curie ITN projects with PhD scholarships. c) As one of the key experts in the area of boundary lubrication, surface engineering and DLC coatings,prof. Kalin often act in PhD defence activities abroad: as a PhD jury members (Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Chalmers University, Halmstad University, Luleå University of Technology), as major PhD opponents (Chalmers University) o
D.10 Educational activities
a) Prof. Kalin is the Editor of the book »History of mechanical engineering and technical culture of Slovenia«, Faculty of mechanical engineering, Ljubljana, 2010. Over 50 different authors from various companies, institutes, universities and museums – including contributed sections and chapters to a coherently and systematically edited book. On 540 pages this book presents key milestones of development of mechanical engineering in Slovenia along the historical path, with key eras, inventions, major inventors, engineers, and industrials. Development of modern mechanical engineering with the most visible engineers in 20th century is also depicted. Finally, development of the University of Ljubljana and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering since 1919 is described, including presentation of today's most advanced Slovenian companies. The book was released during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering as an independent faculty at the University of Ljubljana. The book was printed in 2.000 copies and is available in over 60 libraries over Slovenia. b) In 2010, Prof. Kalin, started and fully developed a special project for public outreach and popularization of Mechanical engineering to primary and secondary school students, to their parents and general public. The project called »Days of Mechanical Engineering« is set under a combined patronage of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Technical Museum of Slovenia, where the event also takes place. Its duration is one week in September. 15-20 different practical experiments are shown to visitors, explaining conventional and modern systems and principles in Mechanical Engineering. Individual visitors and organized school excursions take place, accounting for about 2.000 visitors in that week. The event is already well-established, has taken place for four consecutive years, and is intended to become traditional. c) Experience and success of the event »Days of Mechanical engineering« were the reasons for the invitation of Prof. Kalin as a speaker to a dedicated event on Engineering popularization in public, which Slovenian Academy of Art and Science (SAZU) organized in 2012. Prof. Kalin discussed about these experiences and other aspects and a chapter in the proceedings was also prepared at that occasion: M. Kalin, »Days of Mechanical engineering«, in: S. Kocijančič (ed.), Symposium Teaching techniques, SAZU, 15. March 2012, (Edition Knowledge as a value, 3), Ljubljana: Slovenian Academy of Art and Science, 2012, pg. 120-129. d) M. Kalin, Solid liquid Bi-phase lubricating coatings, in: Q. Wang (ed.), Y. Chung (ed.), Encyclopedia of tribology, Springer, New York [etc.], 2013, pg. 3213-3224. The Encyclopedia of Tribology (Springer Verlag) is, currently, one of the most important tribology monographs, in which Prof. Kalin was invited to contribute a chapter based on his recent studies related to the special strategies of solid-liquid interface design for carbon-based coatings under bi-phase boundary lubrication. The section deals with a combination of effects arising from the physical properties of the lubricant, surface energy of coatings and corresponding wetting and slip phenomena at the interface. e) J. Vižintin, Transmissions and drive trains, Ljubljana: Slovenian society of tribology, 2012, XVIII, 408 str., ilustr. This comprehensive textbook about power transmission and speed conversion drives of vehicles and transport machines and devices was a missing part in the Slovenian literature in the field of mechanical engineering, which enabled Slovenian students and engineers alike to gain knowledge about the development of transmission drives for modern vehicles and industrial machinery in their native language.
C.01 Editorial board of a foreign/international collection of papers/book
a) In Slovenia, our Programme group members are active in several professional engineering societies and boards. We were the founding members (1994) of the Slovenian society of tribology, where our members have several key functions, e.g., the president, the secretary, as well as memberships in the Executive board. The society organises bi-annual international conferences Slotrib where our Programme group members act as organising chairs. The society is also one of the four societies (Slovenia, Switzerland, Italy and Austria) that have started a new bi-annual European conference on tribology “Ecotrib 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013”, and the first - founding - conference with 300 attendees was organised in Ljubljana in 2007. Prof. Kalin (2006-) and prof. Podgornik (2009-) are also a members of the Executive committee of Slovenian society for materials. b) Since 2010, Prof. Kalin, is also a member of the Scientific board of ARRS for Technical fields, supporting strategic leadership of ARRS. Moreover, he was also appointed as a member of Publishing council of SCI IF journal Strojniški vestnik - Journal of Mechanical Engineering (2008-2012). Since 2006 he is also a member of the Slovenian National board for Innovation SFI. c) Our Programme group members are also active in the international societies, primarily STLE and ASME. STLE is a world-wide organisation joining tribologists from all continents. Prof. Kalin, acted on various positions, including being a member of the International Advisory board and he is regularly (now for 5 consecutive years) one of a few judges for student posters at STLE Annual Meetings, where up to 1.500 delegates are attending. Recently, he was invited to become one of 9 Technical Editors of the STLE journal TLT, with about 14.000 only hard-copies per issue. The purpose is to suggest the Editor with the contemporary and relevant research and industrial issues and with the strategic topics in the journal. For ASME, prof. Kalin was acting in the Education committee and organised tracks at two World tribology congresses. d) In 2009 the Programme group leader, Prof. Kalin, was asked to serve as a Chair of an international conference Advances in boundary lubrication and surface boundary films, a highly specialised conference in this field, the third in a row of a 3-year period events. He organised this conference in Seville, in Spain, under patronage of the ECI, USA. This successful conference joined about 60 of the most renowned scientists in the field of tribochemistry, MD simulations, surface tribology and nanotribology. Prof. Kalin had an honour to chair such high-level event and working with the co-chairs Prof. Spikes (Imperial College), Prof. Hsu (GWU Washington) and Prof. Spencer (ETH Zurich). Moreover, in the World Tribology Congress (WTC) in 2013 in Turin, Prof. Kalin was acting as a Track organiser for the entire Ecotrib conference track, which was this year associated with the WTC due to the same year/period events and together with prof. Vižintin acted as one of the board members of the whole WTC. There are also countless of other engagements of our Programme group members in practically any conference they attend, such as chairing sessions, being members of scientific or organising boards etc.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
a) Our Programme group has a strong research activity related to the industry and transfers the scientific knowledge to the applied-oriented environment. This is also evident by the ARRS criterion A3 of our Programme group members, indicating the amount of contracts in private and EU projects sector. The Programme group leader, Prof. Kalin’s value is at maximum value of A3=10 and the summary for the Programme group members is A3=31.67. The Programme group collaborates in several scientific projects with renowned Slovenian companies, such as Kolektor, Iskra Mehanizmi, Danfoss, Hidria, Olma, Unior, etc. and many smaller-size companies. The bibliography of the Programme group members contains 216 reports of different industrial cases and projects in the period of 2009-2014. b) Moreover, strong activity with direct contracts is set also with several international companies, where we collaborated with Bekaert, Atlas Copco, Dow Chemicals, and currently with AC2T in lubrication of DLC, with Sulzer in gears improvements for F1/Nascar racing teams, with Mazaro, Uddeholm and Lubrizol to improve traction performance of an innovative transmission and with EIM Capital Partners from USA to improve wear resistance of coated glass for mobile phones. This is described also in Sections 4, 9.1, 9.2 and 10.1 of this report. c) Beside the aforementioned projects, our Programme group had many collaborations through international EU projects, where strong connection is grounded with some research-leading companies such as Volvo Technology, Volvo cars, SKF, Mercedes MBA, Bekaert, Sulzer, Total, Lubrizol, etc. Our Programme group members also gave several invited lectures at these companies, e.g., Catepillar Inc. (Peoria, IL, USA), SKF Research Centre (Utrecht, Netherlands), Bekaert research centre (Zulte, Belgium), Sulzer SAS (Limoges, France), Atlas Copco (Wilrijik, Belgium) and Danfoss (Ljubljana, Slovenia). d) Currently, Prof. Kalin is also a coordinator of an EC EACEA TRIBOS Erasmus Mundus project on Tribology of Surfaces and Interfaces. In addition to being primarily a Joint European Master study programme (described in Section 5-1.1b), this project, coordinated by Prof. Kalin, also involves a consortium of supporting industrial partners including Scania, Volvo, SKF, Total, VW, Mahle, Keronite, Celoplas, etc. In coordination with TRIBOS, these companies offer to the TRIBOS master students summer-time internships and industry-related projects for their Master theses.
D.01 Chairing over/coordinating (international and national) projects
In the past 5-year period we have developed several experimental techniques and designed several devices, as well as provided novel tribological and surface engineering solutions. Between 2009 and 2014 we consequently have 4 patents and 4 patent applications. a) In the recent years we have been intensively involved in the engineering of the contact interfaces and thereby affecting the tribological performance through the surface energy and surface/oil wetting interaction concepts. Important and completely new findings were reported. Some of these are relevant for a direct industrial implementation. In this view, the Programme group leader, Prof. Kalin, has already been issued three patents in Slovenia: (1) M. Kalin, Lubricant additive and lubricant containing such additive: SI 23990 (A), 2013-08-30; (2) M. Kalin, Piston ring, piston comprising such ring and piston machine comprising at least one such piston: SI 24182 (A), 2014-03-31; and (3) M. Kalin, Adapted piston ring to reduce friction between cylinder wall and piston, piston comprising such ring and piston machine comprising at least one such piston: SI 24181 (A), 2014-03-31. b) Moreover, two patents were recently applied internationally by a PCT (and EU) procedure: (1) M. Kalin, Lubricant aditive and lubricant containing such additive: international application number PCT/SI2013/000004; and (2) M. Kalin, Piston ring, piston comprising such ring and piston machine comprising at least one such piston : PCT/SI2013/000053: patent application [Geneva: WIPO]. The later patent application was subjected to an International official check and all 9 claims were found new, innovative and industrially applicable, thus, very good grounds are set to actually obtain this patent in the next years. In fact, regarding the transfer of this innovation to the industry, preliminary discussion with Sulzer (mother company IPR team in Cologne, Germany) was performed in autumn 2013. New discussions are planned for this year, according to the outcome of the PCT application. Two more patents were applied recently on the international level in collaboration with our Programme group members: (1) U. Tomc, A. Kitanovski, M. Ožbolt, U. Plaznik, U. Flisar, J. Tušek, A. Poredoš, B. Malič, H. Uršič, S. Drnovšek, J. Cilenšek, Z. Kutnjak, B. Rožič, Method for electrocaloric energy conversion, München: European Patent Office, 2013; and (2) M. Sopicka-Lizer, J. Myalski, T. Pawlik, D. Michalik, A. Witkowska, N. Valle, J. Vižintin, M. Sedlaček, A. Botor-Probierz, Sposób wytwarzania kompozytu aluminiowo-ceramicznego zawierajacego drobnodyspersyjne czastki ceramiczne : patentna prijava P.402725. Warszawa: Urzad patentowy RP Polskiej, 2013.
F.32 International patent