Today, Dr.-Ing. Stefanie Hoja, team leader in the Heat Treatment Department, successfully completed her habilitation colloquium.

In her habilitation thesis "Nitriding and nitrocarburizing of gears" she dealt with thermochemical surface treatment to increase the load carrying capacity of gear teeth for use in gears. In this context, Ms. Hoja considers the entire process chain - from the optimum base material to the necessary pre-heat treatment and the development of nitriding processes with which highly stressable surface layer structures can be adjusted with regard to the damage types of pitting, tooth root fracture, micropitting and wear.

In particular, Dr.-Ing. Hoja's research has yielded a wide range of significant findings with regard to materials characterization and the targeted and successful introduction of new process variants. Together with the Research Center for Gears and Gear Systems at the Technical University of Munich, she was finally able to demonstrate that the load carrying capacities of nitrided gears are above those of case-hardened gears, especially when used under tribologically unfavorable conditions. The commission praised and confirmed the scientific performance of Ms. Hoja after the convincing teaching presentation, the scientific lecture and the colloqium at Leibniz-IWT.

The institute congratulates Ms. Hoja on this significant milestone in her scientific career!