Research interests

• scientific and technical aspects of inkjet printing and fluid-based manufacturing processes
• tribology, especially wear and the application of tribological principles to manufacturing processes
• history of tribology

Background

From 2001 to 2017 Ian Hutchings was the GKN Professor of Manufacturing Engineering in the IfM. He has been Emeritus Professor since October 2017. He is also a Fellow of St John's College and until 2024 was Chairman of St John's Innovation Centre Ltd., Cambridge.

In 2005 he founded the Inkjet Research Centre in the Institute to investigate the science and technology which underpin this important industrial process. Major projects in the Centre which involved extensive collaboration with industry and other academic research groups included ‘Next generation inkjet technology’ (EPSRC, 2005-2010) and ‘Innovation in industrial inkjet technology: I4T’ (EPSRC, 2010-2015). Outputs from these and other projects are summarised here.

Other research interests include the application of tribological principles to manufacturing processes, surface engineering and all aspects of the tribological behaviour of materials. He was co-founder and co-director of the highly successful Cambridge Tribology Course which ran every year from 1993 to 2019 and provided an intensive three-day grounding in the subject for delegates from academia and industry.

Ian is the author of a widely-used textbook, 'Tribology: Friction and Wear of Engineering Materials' first published in 1992, and recently published in an updated and expanded second edition (2017), as well as numerous journal and conference papers. Other books include 'Inkjet Technology for Digital Fabrication' (Hutchings and Martin, eds., 2012). In 1994 he was awarded the Tribology Trust Silver Medal, in 2000 the Donald Julius Groen Prize by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and in 2007 the Staudinger-Durrer Prize by ETH Zurich. He was Editor-in-Chief of the international tribology journal, Wear from 1998 to 2012. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Recent publications on tribology:

• Download a list of Ian's publications