Sergio Amancio accepts the 2023 Yoshiaki Arata Award
On the occasion of its annual general assembly in Singapore on 16 July 2023, the International Institute of Welding presented Sergio Amancio, from the Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), with this year’s Yoshiaki Arata Award in recognition of his scientific achievements . This award, which consists of a medal and a certificate, is considered one of the most important awards in the world for research in welding and additive manufacturing and is usually awarded to veteran researchers who are recognized for their lifetime work. For the first time in its nearly 30-year history, the award has been given to a researcher who is still quite young in the middle of his career – Sergio Amancio.
On the occasion of its annual general assembly in Singapore on 16 July 2023, the International Institute of Welding presented Sergio Amancio, from the Institute of Materials Science, Joining and Forming at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), with this year’s Yoshiaki Arata Award in recognition of his scientific achievements . This award, which consists of a medal and a certificate, is considered one of the most important awards in the world for research in welding and additive manufacturing and is usually awarded to veteran researchers who are recognized for their lifetime work. For the first time in its nearly 30-year history, the award has been given to a researcher who is still quite young in the middle of his career – Sergio Amancio.
Making planes and cars lighter
The holder of Professor for Innovative Materials and Manufacturing Technologies in Aviation who was awarded by the ministry of climate protection (BMK), among other things, with a new solid-state and energy-saving joining process of light alloys and their hybrid structures with polymer or composite materials. In addition, he carries out research in the development of additive manufacturing processes for alloy structure and shape memory as well as metal-polymer hybrid structures. The most important areas of application for Sergio Amancio’s work include the light construction of future aircraft and automobiles where the use of rivets or fasteners and thus the additional weight can be eliminated due to the welding and joining techniques he has developed. This should reduce fuel consumption and increase maintenance intervals for future aircraft and vehicles.
The difference between welding and joining is that welding involves mixing two identical materials, i.e. metal with metal or polymer with polymer. In contrast, splicing involves combining dissimilar materials, for example metals with polymers, and there is no mixing due to the physico-chemical differences between the two groups of materials.
Awards for many friends
In its development, Sergio Amancio now holds 22 patents, with 15 other patents pending. For his research and development work in materials science, he has won the DGM Prize in 2022, one of the most important awards in this field, although he emphasizes that the prize is also an honor for his mentors, colleagues and family. .
“The Arata Prize, together with the DGM Prize, is the greatest honor for me in my manufacturing engineering career so far,” said Sergio Amancio. “But I did not achieve all of this alone and there are so many people I want to thank. My parents, my brothers and sisters, my best friend and wife Gisele and also friends like Volker Leiser, Stephen Liu, Jorge F. dos Santos, Christof Sommitsch, Franz Haas and all my current and former students, doctoral students and colleague. I’ve always been very curious myself, especially when faced with the difficult problem of combining metals with polymers. In our collective endeavors we have tried, experimented and tested many things and also achieved many things. So, this award is not mine alone.”
