Mahr High Performance Surface Summit 2025 - Review

Two intensive days with twelve top-class technical presentations, accompanied by reflective panel discussions and an engaged audience - that was Mahr's first High Performance Surface Summit. The "Summit of Surface Function" was aimed at specialists and managers from research & development, production and manufacturing, quality assurance and materials technology - and thus at all those who not only want to qualify technical surfaces, but also understand them and design them in a targeted manner. The first day of the event focused on tribological models, manufacturing processes and modern metrology of high-performance surfaces. What properties characterize low-friction and low-wear workpiece surfaces, and how can they be reliably manufactured and quantified? "The participants received highly interesting insights into the current state of research and teaching, new perspectives on characterization and innovative measurement methods for the latest industrial requirements - from the most renowned professors in the field as well as excellent practitioners, practical and well-founded," summarized Mahr CEO Manuel Hüsken. "It was important to us to bring research, teaching and practice into a direct dialog." The focus was on questions such as: "What requirements are placed on functional surfaces today and how can they be reliably characterized?" or "What metrological, analytical and model-based methods are currently available for this?" The day ended with a panel discussion entitled "Measuring processes between standard and innovation", moderated by Peter Ebert, editor-in-chief of the trade journal InVision.

Reproducible production and testing of high-precision surfaces

The second day of the event focused on the measurement of high-performance surfaces in industrial practice. Among other things, the speakers highlighted the metrological requirements for sealing systems, the influence of steel surface topography on the tribology of ball joints and the grinding of calender rolls. Other topics included the measurement of ball screws in noise and efficiency-critical applications and their quantification using the scattered light method in accordance with VDA 2009. Aspects such as knowledge management in the age of artificial intelligence and the presentation of a new surface model based on cylinder tracks were also met with great interest. The event concluded with an open forum in which participants and speakers jointly discussed how functionally relevant surfaces can be manufactured and measured in a reproducible and cost-efficient manner - and the role played by the combination of classic methods with the scattered light method as an innovative multi-sensor approach. The focus was on the question of how to bridge the gap between laboratory findings and industrial series production.