DTU’s research
environment:
an innovative basis for
patents and start-ups
By Lisbeth Lassen
At Section of Materials and Surface Engineering at DTU
Mechanical Engineering, there appears to be a tradition for new
patents and new companies. In 2010, the company Expanite
was started on the basis of a new process for surface hardening
of stainless steel. Again in 2014 the company TRD Surfaces
was formed, offering a new surface treatment for hardening
different types of metal. Both companies are built on patents and
research. After another 4 years a new company is planned to see
the light in 2018.
A creative space for researchers
Where do new business ideas and patent ideas come from? Do
researchers begin the innovation process by studying applications in
industry?
“It doesn’t begin with industry, it begins with the major driver for
science and innovation: curiosity,” says Professor Marcel Somers, “We
study materials and part of this is how they are or can be applied in
applications and products. Often our curiosity is triggered by a material
failing in a certain application, and we reflect on why it failed and
what we need to understand in order to find an optimal match between
material and application. Although this can be the impetus, at some
point in time curiosity takes over and we focus entirely on the material
without thinking about the eventual application. In this research stage,
we come up with solutions that were never anticipated to exist. Once
these are fine-tuned, and we have considered whether the ideas can be
patented before we publish the scientific results, we revisit the application
again. It is really cross-fertilization between scientific research
and industrial applications.” Senior Researcher Thomas L. Christiansen
agrees: “It’s not just driven by industry or the desire to fix a problem,
it’s the curiosity about what happens in the materials and how far you
can push them that leads to knowledge-based materials solutions.”
Both researchers describe the process of generating new ideas as a
strong interaction between materials research, applications, laboratory
investigations, industry collaboration, and back to research again.
“It doesn’t begin with industry, it begins with
the major driver for science and innovation:
curiosity.”
WhiteWind, a research project using knowhow from a
spin out company
This cross-fertilization is very obvious in connection with the
forthcoming WhiteWind project, a new Innovation Fund project lead by
DTU Wind Energy and with substantial contributions from the Section
of Materials and Surface Engineering and section of Solid Mechanics.
The aim is to create a new solution that can prevent the so-called
white etching cracks in the bearings of multi-megawatt wind turbines
that lead to very expensive breakdowns of the entire wind turbine. As
industry develops bigger and bigger wind turbines, the problem with
white etching cracks has aggravated, a problem that so far has been
impossible to predict.
“What happens is that these cracks appear in the bearings, maybe
already after four months,” tells Thomas Christiansen, “It causes a
complete breakdown, and it is even more expensive to repair if the wind
turbine is located in the North Sea. It can potentially be a showstopper
for industry, and this type of failure is also known in other industries.”
14 DTU ’s research environment: an innovative basis for patents and start-ups