On 23 February 2018, the Mid-term meeting of NEWEX project was held in Lublin University of Technology in room 107 of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. The meeting lasted from 9.30 to 16.00.
All participants of the project were informed about the meeting in December 2017 and at the beginning of January all leaders received a preliminary agenda of the Mid-term meeting, which was approved by the Project Officer from Research Executive Agency.
All participants of the project were invited to take part in the meeting and additionally the CEO of Dirmeta Company from Lithuania was expected to come. The MTM was attended by 30 people: most members of research teams from all institutions participating in the project with their leaders members of Expert Advisory Board and a special guest from Brussels, Mr Rodrigo Gutierrez Dominguez, a representative of Research Executive Agency.
The Opening Remarks were provided by Janusz W. Sikora. Mr Rodrigo Dominguez in a short speech explained the aim of his visit. The next item was Round the Table Introduction, in which particular research teams, Coordinator of the project and the representative of REA presented themselves shortly. Then, Janusz W. Sikora talked about four issues concerning the project. The first one was the description of the general status of the project, the second one included training, transfer of knowledge & networking, the third one concerned Managament, and the fourth one described Impact of the project.
First, Coordynator of the project presented objectives, work program, milestones, deliverables and implementation of the project and then talked about secondments, training activities, events, e-Learning and cooperation. Within management he discussed financial aspects, communication, re-orientation activities, PR, ethics and IPR, and finished his presentation describing dissemination of results and publications as well as communication activities to reach the general public, including the website, publications, participantion in conferences, submittion of patents and other dissemination activities.
Next, Ludmila Dulebova from Technical University of Technology reported the implementation of WP1. This presentation concerned results achieved within the work on the part of the NEWEX project, namely the Work Plan 1: Initial state research and results (zero-state parameters). In the presentation, the results of all experiments carried out in WP 1 were summarized. In conclusion, it was stated that all tasks required under the plan were conducted, no deviations from the initial work plan.
Antonio Gaspar Cunha presented the implementation of WP2. He started from identification of the main tasks to be accomplished: development of the grooved barrel section, the rotational barrel segment and the special screw; modelling and optimization of the geometries proposed and selection of the best elements.
The modelling of the global plasticating includes now the possibility of computing the behaviour of the grooves in the feed barrel section. The program is being prepared to accommodate the rotational barrel segment and the special screw.
The modelling results concerning the groove conceptions selected were presented. From these results, the Solution Model chosen to be implemented in the prototype machine is the Solution Model 1. This solution is characterized by its versatility concerning changes in both the depth and total width of the grooves and by the good capacity of auto-cleaning. Further work includes the modelling of the rotational barrel segment and the special screw and the optimization of the whole process.
While Krzysztof Trojanowski described the activities connected with e-learning and e-platform. In his presentaton, concerning eLearning platform, he shown the summary of 2017 achievements, the plan for 2018 and the further activities. It comprised:
- Technical information: moodle platform, server, configuration,
- Start-up activities: User’s guide, training course: Simple Mathematics Operations, the presentation on the practical aspects and functionalities, the list of platform users,
- 2017 eCourses (structure, content, quizzes, results, summary):
– Extrusion Process: from theory to applications
– Extrusion Process: specific aspects
- Summary and conclusions of the results (Report: summary of 2017 activities),
- Plan for 2018 and the next years (until the end of the NEWEX project).
All eLearning platform activities were positively accomplished in 2017. Further activities provide more extensive and ambitious plan in comparison to the Annex I of the NEWEX project.
After the coffee break, a few Secondees had their presentations in order to demonstrate their contribution to the WP. The speeches were provided by Lino Costa from the University of Minho, Anna Rudawska from Lublin University of Technology and Peter Chorovsky from SEZ Krompachy a.s.
After the presentations, the selected Secondees had short bilaterally interviews to discuss with the REA representative possible critical issues about their experiences within the RISE network in a more restricted setting.
In the second part of the Mid-term meeting, there was a discussion between seconded staff members and the Project Officer Mr Rodrigo Gutierrez Dominguez, which focused on the experiences within the network in terms of administration, supervision and integration, training and scientific aspects. The Project Officer paid special attention to the same aspects.
Coordinator of the project Janusz Sikora thanked Mr Rodrigo Dominguez for helpful comments and tried to show the activities which will be undertaken in connection with these comments.
At the end of this item of MTM agenda Mr Rodrigo Gutierrez Dominguez stated that generally the project proceeds well but the above mentioned aspects sholud be dealt with quickly.
An the end of the meeting the REA representative concluded the discussion by summarising the output of the Network so far and by providing recommendations for the continuation of the project. Coordinator of the project shortly described the next steps in the project conncerning research as well as trainnig, transfer of knowledge and networking. He stated that the meeting was a success and the activities that have been carried out so far in the project are in accordance with the plan and despite the difficulties caused by the termination of the project by one of the Partners there is a big chance to carry on with the project to the successful end. Coordinator thanked everybody for coming to Lublin and for the participation in the Mid-term meeting.
