Kenneth Holmberg


Kenneth Gösta Holmberg is a Finnish professor emeritus in Mechanical Engineering, especially Tribology, which is the science and engineering related to Friction, Lubrication and Wear. He has contributed to our understanding of friction and wear of coated surfaces, computational simulation of tribological contacts, E-maintenance and global impact of friction and wear on energy consumption, emissions and economy. He has provided several scientific books and is an internationally recognised and awarded tribology expert. .

Early life and education

Kenneth Holmberg was born in Helsinki, Finland on May 26, 1949, and belongs to the Swedish speaking minority of Finland. He received his MS in Mechanical Engineering 1976, Licentiate of Technology 1980 and PhD Tech 1984 at Helsinki University of Technology. His licentiate and doctoral thesis were on elstohydrodynamic and boundary lubrication theories. He was the chairman of the Swedish speaking student’s society TF Teknologföreningen 1972 .

Career

Holmberg made his research career in tribology and material science at VTT the Technical Research Centre of Finland from 1980 as researcher. From 1993 he was as research professor at VTT in tribology, condition monitoring and operational reliability . He is the author and editor of several books. He has published more than 200 scientific papers mainly in areas of tribology, surface engineering, lubrication, computational material modelling and simulation, operational reliability, maintenance and machine diagnostics.
He wrote together with Allan Matthews from Hull University, UK, in 1994 the book Coatings Tribology that has become a classic in the field. They describe in the book the fundamental tribological mechanisms of loaded sliding surfaces covered by thin coatings, such as used today in automotive and electronics. He pioneered with a book on E-maintenance 2010 developed computational modelling and simulation technology for tribological contacts. In a seminal paper he published 2013 calculations on the impact of friction in passenger cars on energy consumption, emissions and economy from microcontact scale up to global scale.
He is Vice President of International Tribology Council and was President of the OECD IRG Wear Group 1992-2006 and President of COST 516 & 532 Tribology programs 1994-2007 including 25 European countries. He has been responsible for organizing major international conferences in tribology, condition monitoring and diagnostics, EUROTRIB’89, COMADEM’97 and NORDTRIB’00 . He has been board member in several scientific foundations and is a frequently used expert in the European Community and the European Science Foundation.
He has been Acting Professor and Docent at Aalto University , Finland, Visiting Professor at Ecole Centrale de Lyon, Lyon University, France and Visiting Professor at Sheffield University, UK. He was Scientific Secretary 1986-1997, Board Member 1994-2001 and Vice President 1997-2001 at the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in Finland .
He served as Chief Engineering Counsellor at the Supreme Administrative Court in Finland 2003-2017 .

Personal life

He was married with Ulla Andrea Holmberg and they have three children, Ville, Maya and Hanna and eight grandchildren.

Awards