INOVAL, an innovation centre for aluminium processing technologies and aluminium products was ceremonially opened in Žiar nad Hronom in mid October 2010. The centre is a joint project of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV) and the company SAPA Profily, on whose premises the centre is located. The plan is to cooperate on development projects and their practical implementation.
“We wanted to get closer to clients who work with light metals because for many of them Bratislava is too far,” said František Simančík, the director of the Bratislava-based SAV’s Institute of Materials and Machine Mechanics, as cited by the TASR newswire. “We also wanted to start to solve with them common problems which they encounter in their workplaces.”
The centre should also carry out research in the field of pressing composite materials based on light metals for clients who are eager to bring new materials into production.
Thanks to financial support from EU Structural Funds the centre boasts a modern laboratory and other equipment. SAPA Profily has invested more than €420,000 in the project.
Research in the centre should focus on modelling and simulation.
“We will further try to optimise technological parameters in order to reduce waste and to simultaneously increase productivity,” Simančík said, as cited in the local newspaper, adding that SAV would obtain equipment and research would be carried out in cooperation with industrial partners, who would pay for it.
INOVAL plans to complete its first project by the end of December 2011 with a budget of roughly €0.5 million.
SAV also has the ambition is to build a so-called competence centre on the same site.
