Prize for addition to Van der Hoek’s principal work

During the 19th edition of the Precision Fair, the Wim van der Hoek Award was presented under the auspices of DSPE (Dutch Society for Precision Engineering). The prize went to Sven klein Avink, who graduated from the University of Twente (UT) on the incorporation of visco-elastic elements in elastic hinge constructions to absorb the effects of overconstraining. “An interesting addition to Wim van der Hoek’s principal work, Des Duivels Prentenboek”, said the panel of judges.

The second day of the Precision Fair 2019, Thursday 14 November in Veldhoven (NL), featured the presentation of the Wim van der Hoek Award. This award (also known as the Constructors Award) was introduced in 2006 to mark the 80th birthday of the Dutch doyen of design engineering principles, Wim van der Hoek, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 94. The Constructors Award is presented every year to the person with the best graduation project in the field of design in mechanical engineering at the Dutch (and Belgian) universities of technology and universities of applied sciences. This award includes a certificate, a trophy made by LiS (Leidse instrumentmakers School) and a sum of money, sponsored by HTSC; the High Tech Systems Center at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e).

Three nominations

Criteria for the assessment of the graduation theses include quality of the design, substantiation and innovativeness, as well as the suitability for use as teaching materials. The panel of judges, under the presidency of DSPE board member Jos Gunsing (MaromeTech), received three nominations, submitted by the graduation supervisor/professor of each student concerned, from Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven, TU/e and UT. “In all cases it concerned high-quality work in which very different themes have been systematically tackled from design to experiment”, the panel of judges said. The three nominees have been invited to attend the DSPE Conference on Precision Mechatronics 2020 free of charge and to contribute a poster presentation of their graduation work.

DDP worthy

The Wim van der Hoek Award 2019 eventually went to Sven klein Avink, who studied Mechanical Engineering at Saxion University of Applied Sciences and the UT. This spring, he graduated from the UT on the incorporation of visco-elastic elements in elastic hinge constructions to absorb the effects of overconstraining. According to the panel of judges, this work adds an extra paragraph, and “explicitly a material property component”, to Des Duivels Prentenboek (DDP), “The Devil’s Picture Book”, Wim van der Hoek’s principal work. “Sven approaches the theme analytically, numerically as well as experimentally; thereby he creates optimum understanding. The work offers extra possibilities for designers to extend the working range of leafspring constructions. He gives an excellent quantification of the visco-elastic effects down to the level of the impact on the eigenmodes / eigenfrequencies.” The panel of judges jury also sees opportunities for a follow-up: “We would like to propose the generalisation to other elastic hinge constructions and / or the application to a complete construction.”

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