The fourth face-to-face meeting of the TOPGEAR project consortium took place on 5-6 October 2023. Sidenor, as coordinator, invited all partners to Hanau (Germany) to discuss the results achieved so far. The meeting helped to resolve a number of outstanding issues and set the scene for the remainder of the project.

 

The technical emphasis revolved around the alternative surface hardening to the current carburizing process, the ongoing manufacturing of the 27MnCr5 reference gear, and results of fatigue tests with different material and surface hardening processes. A result in the direction of dissemination was that the consortium will publish papers, patents and articles. In addition, two workshops will be held, one on "Challenges and good practices for carbon footprint identification in very early development stages (R&D) of automotive products (electromobility)". On the other hand, the results of the project will be demonstrated and presented in the end.