Bruno Miguel Pereira Guimarães, a recent PhD student from the Mechanical Engineering doctoral programme at the University of Minho, research centre CMEMS – Center for Microelectromechanical Systems, won the prestigious competition for the ‘Best PhD thesis in the European Union 2024 in the field of Powder Metallurgy’, a prize awarded by the EPMA-European Powder Metallurgy Association. EPMA, created in 1989, represents the entire European powder metallurgy industry.

The thesis, supervised by Georgina Miranda, Cristina Fernandes (Palbit) and EEUM lecturer Filipe Samuel Silva, was carried out in partnership with the company PALBIT S.A., entitled ‘Multi-Functional WC-Co cutting tool – a Multi-Material Engineering Design’ presents a new concept of multi-material and multi-functional cutting tools, capable of reading the temperature generated in the tool’s cutting zone in real time and, with this, automatically optimising the CNC machine’s machining parameters in order to produce higher quality parts and increase the tool’s useful life.

The multi-material 3D additive manufacturing process used to manufacture the tool was developed within the CMEMS centre and corresponds to an additive manufacturing development carried out by one of the CMEMS centre’s strategic projects, which aims to create technologically advanced components made up intrinsically of various materials with different functions, including sensing or acting, within the same component, mimicking the biological components found in nature.

After completing his doctorate, Bruno Guimarães was recruited by the company Palbit S.A. as part of the Product Research and Development unit as an RDI – Research, Development and Innovation – project manager.