Guest doctoral student from Iceland

Ulfar Arinbjarnar is a visiting PhD student working at PtU for 2 months

Hello Ulfar, how is it going?

Great, thank you very much. I like it here incredibly. This is my first time in Germany, apart from a family vacation that we took in Bavaria when I was about 11 years old. I still have wonderful memories of that time, so I was very excited to come back to Germany!

Where exactly in Iceland are you from?

I grew up in the north of Iceland’, near Akureyri but I was in fact born in Denmark. Akureyri is not very big, only about 20,000 people, although it is the second largest town in Iceland. At that time there were mainly farmers and only a few machines, so the profession of engineer did not come so naturally to me. (laughter)

Can you briefly say a few points about your curriculum vitae? How old are you?

Ah, I just turned 26.

Where did you study?

I did a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial engineering in Iceland at Háskóli Íslands, the University of Iceland in Reykjavík, and then my Master’s degree at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, with a focus on manufacturing.

And now you are doing your PhD there?

Yes, I have just started. My topic is tribology in micro-forming, and especially basic research for robust production. Look, here I have this strip of sheet metal as an example of the process I'm investigating: a combination of stamping and deep drawing to form rectangular cups.

Sounds very exciting. And this is where Yutian can help you?

Yes, indeed! His method for wear detection and prediction can help me incredibly in my research. He developed it more in laboratory conditions for conventional forming, but now I'm going to use it under real conditions and for micro-forming.

Do you like it at PtU? What is different compared to your university in Denmark?

I like it here very much and I am very impressed by your huge range of machines and your wide field of research. It is different in Denmark: we have fewer PhD students, and we are not as specialized. You even have your own institute for forming technology, whereas we do not have such specialized departments.

Ulfar, thank you very much for the interview. I wish you continued success in your work!

(Interview done by E. Henkes)