A wear-testing device developed by academics at Hitit University in Çorum’s TEKNOKENT is now in use at nearly 30 institutions.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bünyamin Çiçek and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuna Aydoğmuş from the Technical Sciences Vocational School at Hitit University established a company under TEKNOKENT in 2020, aiming to localize machinery and equipment that are typically imported and used in universities and industry.
The “wear-testing device” developed by the academics is being requested by both universities and private firms.
Dr. Çiçek told Anadolu Agency that thanks to the device, many products can be tested before use. “It is a machine developed to reveal how durable a newly produced metallic alloy, plastic formulation or composite material is; how it will behave against wear; what coefficient of friction regime it shows while wearing. Its design and software belong to us. Thanks to the computer interface, it can provide friction coefficient data.”
Emphasizing the wide use-area of the device, Çiçek added: “You can check the hardness or wear amount of a steel used in armour aimed at the defence industry. Or you can observe how a biomedical material to be attached to the body will react in artificial body fluid. In this way we have developed a machine that can simulate every material produced before bringing it into the industrial environment, and we offered an industrial-localized machine.”
Noting that similar machines used to be imported, Çiçek said: “In terms of wear testing many devices are used but we localized this machine at nearly one-quarter the cost of those in Europe.”
Dr. Aydoğmuş explained that they generally develop experimental machines for universities, and also carry out work for the private sector. “As our design and software are our own, we can meet special requests of the university or industry. We have supplied our 3-4 major machines to industry. Beyond that, if you count mould designs, machine parts and experimental sets, we have supplied more than 20 types of machine to approx. 30 firms.”
He added that they attach importance to localizing imported products: “Our aim with the company is to produce domestic and national machines. The most important consideration in doing this is to prevent budget outflows to abroad. With machines we manufacture more cheaply we aim to address more students and the sector with more experimental sets.”
