FUNDACIÓN TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION (TECNALIA) is, from the 1st of January, 2011, a research organisation resulting from the merging of eight research organisations: Fundación Cidemco, Fundación ESI-European Software Institute, Fundación European Virtual Engineering, Fundación Fatronik, Fundación Inasmet, Fundación Labein, Fundación Leia and Fundación Robotiker.
TECNALIA is the leading private research and technology entity in Spain and the fifth largest in Europe. TECNALIA employs 1,437 people (164 PhDs) and its turnover is 121Me, it filed 53 patents, had 3800 clients and created 8 spin-offs in year 2009. TECNALIA is very active in participating the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) having already 150 funded projects, 31 of them coordinated.
Innovation Systems, Sustainable Development (Energy, Construction and Environment), Industry and Transport (Casting and iron & steel, Transport and Industrial Systems), ICT (Software, Telecom, Infotech and Information Society) and Health and Life Quality (Health and Life Quality) are the fields in which TECNALIA operates.
Previous experience in the field
INASMET as previous centre of TECNALIA started its activity on 1962 as a foundry association and it has continued working on these activities with a staff of more than 60 people. On this sector, the departments are related on non-ferrous alloys (aluminium, magnesium, zinc and copper); also studies on ferrous based materials are carried out supported with semi-industrial facilities to perform these tasks. In 1980 the technologies were expanded to other materials and sectors as for example glass and ceramic. These departments are equipped with laboratory facilities to manufacture and validate the experimental findings. Last fields and sectors to be involved at INASMET were environmental technologies, energy and health.
To run projects on these sectors, expert industry and researcher personnel has been joined to INASMET to fit the real industrial needs to the experimental knowledge of academic researchers.
Main tasks and responsibilities within NIWE
WP1-Project Coordinator
Responsible of the development of new liquid metallurgy thermal systems in WP3 and Leader of WP4
Design validations and basic engineering where lab-scale pilots will be constructed.
Relevant participation in the Monitoring and validation phase of the demonstrators – WP7.
Relevant network and experience
SEMATEC has a large experience on the foundry market. SEMATEC has inspected the safety of all kind of furnaces in more than 30 foundries in Spain. SEMATEC has a large experience in machine design projects of all types, having worked for companies such as DANOBAT, ULMA, EUSKAL FORGING. As a subcontractor, SEMATEC provides technical support in the EDEFU Project “New Designs of ecological Furnaces” (set up of safety procedures to be adopted by staff operating the furnace).