CLiCAM ERA talent Tomáš Tesař successfully finished his secondment in Treibacher Industrie AG in Althofen, Austria. After his six‑month‑long training, Tomas is back with Institute of Plasma Physics in Prague, Czechia, ready to share his gained skills and knowledge from the industrial sector with his peers in academia. Thanks to the experience of working in an application‑driven research and development, the new skills include awareness of resource planning and project management, intellectual property rights protection and use, experimental and analysis workflow, and data management.

During the stay, Tomas’ main research topic was the deposition of dry fine powders in the field of thermal barrier coatings in an attempt to probe the sprayability of such powders with up‑to‑date gravimetric feeders and axial plasma torch, and to analyze the influence of the deposition parameters on the coatings’ microstructure. Some of the powders turned out to be relatively easy to spray, while others were more challenging even with the addition of flowability agents. Elaborating on these delicate powders is going to be a joint research interest between Treibacher Industrie and Institute of Plasma Physics to tap deeper into the potential of these unconventional feedstocks.

Also, thanks to the diverse requests from internal and external customers, Tomáš was able to participate in the development, testing, and refinement loop, witnessing first‑hand the modus operandi in a modern technological company, solving not only production challenges on the go.

Learning the practical approach of pinpointing the relevant variables and finding the optimal solution is going to be an invaluable asset for the talent’s future work!