Hans Kurt Tönshoff Prize awarded at the IFW Ball

Three outstanding dissertations were nominated for the HKT Prize:

• Dr.-Ing. Daniel Raffalt: Manufacturing and Application of Grinding Wheels for Tool Grinding
• Dr.-Ing. Henning Buhl: Force-Sensing Spindle for Form Error Compensation in Grinding Long-Overhang Shank Tools
• Dr.-Ing. Klaas Heide: Highly Automated Recontouring of Repair-welded Forming Tools

The jury found it really difficult to pick a winner this year. Professor Berend Denkena emphasised: "All three works are scientifically very interesting, excellently researched and therefore absolutely worthy of the prize. Determining the order of the nominated works for the Hans Kurt Tönshoff Prize was particularly challenging this year.

Each of the three jury members had a different candidate in mind for first place. This meant that each nominee achieved first place once. The difference was then made by second place. One of the nominees was voted into second place twice and was thus able to win the race.

Congratulations to Dr.-Ing. Klaas Heide on the best dissertation of the year

Klaas Heide took first place once and second place twice with his dissertation. He thus won the HKT Prize for the best dissertation in 2025. In his award-winning dissertation, he developed a process for the highly automated recontouring of repair-welded moulding tools and showed how even complex tool contours can be restored after welding repairs with minimal manual effort. You can find more information about Klaas Heide's dissertation here.

Festive conclusion after the award ceremony

Good food, good conversation, music and dancing – this year's celebration took place at the Production Technology Centre Hannover (PZH) in Garbsen. In this setting, IFW alumni and employees were able to exchange ideas in a relaxed atmosphere, make new contacts and refresh old ones. The ball was the crowning finale of a successful day. After the annual general meeting of the alumni association and the alumni seminar, everyone celebrated together from 7 p.m. until the early hours of the morning.

The IFW would like to thank the entire organisation team for the excellent execution of the events on this special day and congratulates the nominees and the winner of the HKT Prize on their outstanding achievements!