The Award
The IFHTSE Medal is awarded for distinguished achievement. It is made possible by the support of SC Plasmaterm SA, Romania.
Awards to date
(2004) Professor Tom Bell, University of Birmingham, UK
Medal presented at the 14th Congress, Shanghai, 26 October 2004
This first award of the Medal recognised a wide and multidisciplinary range of globally visible contributions, over more than 30 years, to heat treatment and surface engineering.
Bell influenced progress from the viewpoints of materials science, materials engineering, design engineering, tribology, economics, and environmentally benign process development.
He was one of the originators of the concept and term ‘surface engineering’ and one of its foremost promoters. In academic life his effective teaching has produced graduates now contributing to progress in this field in many countries.
In addition to his contributions to IFHTSE over many years, particularly as a member of its Executive Committee, Bell was twice President – for 1983-1984 and for 2000-2001. He was appointed Fellow of IFHTSE in 2003.
(2006) Urs Wyss, formerly MAAG Gear Co. Switzerland, and first IFHTSE Secretary
Medal presented at the 15th Congress, Vienna, 26 September 2006
Primarily, the award recognised the enormous contribution made by Wyss to international communication and collaboration through his seminal work as the Secretary of IFHTSE from its foundation in 1971-72 until 1988. In that period, and especially in the early days, his dedication, charm and easy ability in German, French and English ensured a successful launch for the Federation. He wrote the constitution, inspired the early meetings, encouraged his collaborators and fostered fruitful East-West relations. Without him, it is unlikely that the venture would have been so fruitful.
Wyss combined his organisational and administrative skills with a successful materials engineering career in industry. Originally graduating in chemistry before he was 20, he began work in 1939 at Von Roll-Stahlwerke, Gerlafingen, where he concentrated on steel hardenability and hardenability testing. In 1952 he moved to Maag Zahnräder AG, Zürich. As manager of the metallurgical laboratory and heat treatment workshop, he led the development of the Eintropfverfahren technology (a drip-feed method using liquid hydrocarbons). Known commercially as the Carbomaag Process it brought him many international patents. Significant publications resulted from his industrial work and he was a frequent contributor to AWT’s Wiesbaden Härterei-Kolloquium and other conferences.
In 1982, AWT awarded him the Adolf Martens medal. He was President of the Swiss Society for Heat Treatment in 1953, when he was only 30, and was appointed Honorary President in 1972. He is also an Honorary Member of the Association Technique de Traitement Thermique (ATTT), France. He is Honorary President of IFHTSE.
(2007) George Krauss, Emeritus Professor, Colorado School of Mines, GOLDEN CO, USA
Medal presented at the 16th Congress in Brisbane, Australia October 2007
George Krauss’ contributions to education and research in the metallurgical and materials engineering community are extensive and significant at all levels. Foremost, he is a teacher’s teacher, committed to educating new metallurgical engineers and the continuing updating of practising engineers. In addition to the numerous students he has influenced over the years, his teaching accomplishments are most obvious in his classic textbook ‘Steels – processing, structure, and performance’. This text, along with his numerous other publications, has formed the basis of many courses. His educational efforts have been recognised in many teaching awards, including the Albert Easton White Award from ASM in 1999.
His vision for the steel industry led to the development of the Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center in 1984, an industry/university cooperative that continues today as the most successful programme of its kind in the world. Research in the centre emphasises heat treating and surface processing of steels.
His research on steels is extensive. Of particular note is his work on the relationship between microstructure and properties of low-temperature tempered high-carbon steels. This research refined the understanding of the fracture behaviour of martensitic steels, critical to the understanding of the fracture behaviour of carburised steels. The research also led to new alloying and process methods that have been adopted globally. His achievements have been recognised in several awards, including the Adolf Martens Medal for 1990 and the Edward DeMille Campbell Memorial Lecture Award from ASM in 2000. He is a Fellow of ASM, a Distinguished Member of the Iron and Steel Society of AIME, and an Honorary Member of the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan. He has contributed significantly to professional associations in the metals and heat treating industries, most notably as President 1989-90 of the International Federation for Heat Treatment and Surface Engineering, of which he is a Fellow, and as President of ASM International.
(2008) Tadashi Maki, Emeritus Professor, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
Medal to be presented at the 17th Congress in Kobe, Japan October 2008
Professor Maki’s significant contribution to the development of materials science in the context of heat treatment and surface engineering is represented by his research on the principles of microstructure evolution by phase transformation, precipitation, deformation and recrystallization in ferrous and titanium alloys from a number of viewpoints especially thermodynamics, kinetics, crystallography.
Of particular note is his work on the microstructure and properties of martensite and bainite in steels through systematic examination of the morphology and internal structure of martensite in alloy steels. He successfully clarified the principle behind thin-plate martensite morphology which led to development of a ferrous alloy with superior shape memory effect. Further, his study on bainite transformation has contributed significantly in the understanding of its transformation mechanism.
Equally important is his work on grain refinement of steels and titanium alloys through thermomechanical processing. He obtained submicron sized ferrite grains in high carbon steels with high strength and good ductility. He has also investigated hot/warm deformation structures and achieved high strain rate superplasticity in duplex stainless steels by dynamic continuous recrystallization producing high-angle boundaries capable of grain boundary sliding.
His achievements have been recognized in many awards, including the Nishiyama Award from the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan (ISIJ), the Honda Memorial Lecture Award from the Japan Institute for Metals (JIM) both in 2007, the Hayashi Memorial Prize from the Japan Society for Heat Treatment and best paper awards from ISIJ, JIM and the UK Institute of Materials Minerals and Mining. He has contributed significantly to professional associations in the metals and heat treating industries, most notably as Vice President of the Japan Society for Heat Treatment (2001-2003), and President of the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan (2002-2004).
(2010) Eric Jan Mittemeijer Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Stuttgart, and Institute for Materials Science, University of Stuttgart
Medal presented at the Conference ‘Reducing energy consumption in heat and thermal treatment technologies and installations’, Brașov Poiana, Romania, November 2010
The award recognises Professor Mittemeijer’s past and continuing contributions to global knowledge transfer in heat treatment, especially in nitriding and nitrocarburising, as well as in the field of phase transformations in both ferrous and non-ferrous alloys.
Eric Mittemeijer graduated from Delft Technical University in 1972 after studying chemical technology and specialising in physical chemistry. He gained his PhD after study at the Foundation for Fundamental Research of Matter in 1978. Thereafter he returned to Delft as the deputy leader of the group Heat Treatment Science of Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Alloys. In 1985, at the age of 35, he was appointed to the departmental chair of Physical Chemistry of the Solid State. After a short period as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Chemical Technology and Materials Science, he moved to Stuttgart in 1998 to his present position as Director at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart and Full Professor (chair holder) at the Institute for Materials Science at the University of Stuttgart.
His specialist ‘chemical viewpoint’ has yielded broadly based contributions to the field of heat treatment of immense significance for the advancement of the understanding and control of the processes. Since his move in 1998 to Stuttgart, he has founded and led the Phase Transformations department at the Max Plank Institute for Metals Research. He has built up a multidisciplinary team of 40-45 people of diverse nationalities, using an extensive range of equipment for X-ray diffraction analysis, scanning Auger microscopy, X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy, ellipsometry; calorimetry and dilatometry. Appropriately, his expertise has ensured that the department's contributions have been in the field of phase transformations in solid materials. Using a cutting-edge experimental approach, important contributions have been made to the development of models for phase transformations. These models apply not only to bulk but also to nano-scale materials, and are intended to be of practical value in optimising material properties by controlling the material microstructure, as well as providing insight into the fundamentals.
He has, of course, published widely and has more than 550 papers to his name. He also serves on the editorial boards of many journals and has been centrally involved in the planning of many conferences and the publication of their proceedings. He was editor of ‘Diffraction Analysis of the Microstructure of Materials’ (Springer, 2004) and, significantly, co-editor of the ‘European White Book on Fundamental Research in Materials Science’ (2001) which played a major role in the formulation of the EU 6th Framework Programme. In 2010 he was appointed Managing Editor of International Journal of Materials Research.
He contributes to the work and activities of national and international societies: he is co-founder and was President of the Dutch/Belgian Heat Treatment Society, co-founder and was President of the (Dutch) Society of Metals, member of the Board of the Heat Treating Society of ASM International, member of the International Center for Diffraction Data (ICDD), has been chairman of the AWT-working group on Nitriding and Nitrocarburizing. From 1998 to 2004 he was Chairman of the European Powder Diffraction Committee (EPDIC). He was a key member of the organising committees for the 10th and 11th IFHTSE Congresses (Brighton UK 1996, and Florence, Italy 1998, respectively).
He has received many honours for this work, including: Fellowship of ASM International (and was ASM European Lecturer 1991-92, Jacob Wallenberg Award of the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences of Sweden (1993), Honorary President of the Dutch-Belgian Society of Heat Treatment (1996), Honorary Member of the Netherlands Society of Metals (1998)and Honorary Professor, Tianjin University (2006).
His work is widely recognised by industry and he has been a member of the Supervisory Board of, and is still an advisor to, SKF Engineering & Research Centre BV, and SKF Engineering & Research Services BV.
Among his current and continuing areas of activity are: phase transformations, thermodynamics and kinetics, development and relaxation of stress and phase transformations in thin (multi)layers, and nitriding and nitrocarburizing of ferrous materials. Further, he is Speaker of the International Max Planck Research School on Advanced Materials (IMPRS-AM; at the moment about 35 Ph.D. students, 75% are of foreign origin), and ‘Studiendekan’ (responsible for the teaching and the development of a new Bachelor/Master programme on Materials Science) and chairman of the Board of Examinations for the Study of Materials Science (Werkstoffwissenschaft) at the University of Stuttgart.
Mittemeijer was born in 1950 in Haarlem, Netherlands.
