The current proposal aims to demonstrate the potential of thin film metallic glasses as novel tribological coating materials, used to improve the performance of tools, dies, and moulds in many different applications. These coatings are characterized by a high hardness, as well as high wear- and oxidation resistance. Thin film metallic glasses are promising materials to fulfil these demands. Due to their amorphous structure they have excellent mechanical properties such as high specific strengths and large elastic limits above 2%. The absence of defects like grain boundaries also makes them resistant against corrosion and wear. In comparison to conventional protective coatings based on transition metal nitrides, thin film metallic glasses have the added benefit of a relatively low elastic modulus, making them tougher and able to accommodate a certain degree of substrate deformation without delaminating. In this study, amorphous WZrB coatings will be deposited by a combinatorial dc magnetron sputter process from three elemental targets onto commercially relevant substrate materials. The primary refractory element W provides the necessary temperature stability for tribological applications, while Zr and B have both been shown to enhance the glass forming ability in W-based alloys. Experimental activities will be supported by our company partner CERATIZIT Austria GmbH, a global leader in the hard metal tooling industry. The thin film metallic glass/substrate systems will be characterized with state-of-the-art methods in terms of their chemical, mechanical, thermal, and tribological properties. Results will be critically evaluated regarding the up-scaling potential of developed processes and materials systems from laboratory to industrial conditions.

The chronology of ancient Egypt is a golden thread for the memory of early civilisation. It is not only the scaffolding of four millennia of Egyptian history, but also one of the pillars of the chronology of the entire ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. The basic division of Egyptian history into 31 dynasties was introduced by Manetho, an Egyptian historian (c. 280 BC) writing in Greek for the Ptolemaic kings. Despite the fact that this scheme was adopted by Egyptologists 200 years ago and remains in use until today, there has never been an in-depth analysis of Manetho’s kinglist and of the names in it. Until now, identifying the Greek renderings of royal names with their hieroglyphic counterparts was more or less educated guesswork. It is thus essential to introduce the principles of textual criticism, to evaluate royal names on a firm linguistic basis and to provide for the first time ever an Egyptological commentary on Manetho’s kinglist. Just like Manetho did long ago, now it is necessary to gather all inscriptional evidence on Egyptian history: dated inscriptions, biographic and prosopographic data of royalty and commoners, genuine Egyptian kinglists and annals. These data must be critically evaluated in context, their assignment to specific reigns must be reconsidered, and genealogies and sequences of officials must be reviewed. The results are not only important for Egyptian historical chronology and for our understanding of the Egyptian perception of history, but also for the interpretation of chronological data gained from archaeological excavations (material culture) and sciences (14C dates, which are interpreted on the basis of historical chronology, e.g., via ‘Bayesian modelling’). The applicant has already shown the significance of this approach in pilot studies on the pyramid age. Further work in cooperation with international specialists will thus shed new light on ancient sources in order to determine the chronology of early civilisation.

The majority of the world’s population still live in vernacular buildings which are based on local knowledge. Climate has a significant impact on the use and evolution of local building techniques and building design. CLIMATE-Arch will focus on the processes involved in the transformation of local building techniques caused by climate and climate change. A wide range of local material resources and natural environmental conditions, and the effects of climate change, produce various kinds of technical adaptations. CLIMATE-Arch will explore these transformations and their drivers at the level of both building technology and building design, focusing on two regions in Eurasia that use a range of local building technologies. Most previous research on the impact of climate change has taken a mono-disciplinary approach, in the main not considering the processes responsible for the evolution and transformation of buildings, which principally stem from the inextricable link between material and environmental conditions. CLIMATE-Arch will break new ground by examining the factors that trigger vernacular transformation through a climate lens, combining climate research and the disciplines of architecture, engineering, natural environmental sciences and sociology. As the project will examine vernacular changes expected as a result of predicted climate change, the results will remain relevant long after the conclusion of the work. In the long term, the research of CLIMATE-Arch will be indispensable both for producing accurate scientific accounts and for establishing standards to balance conservation and modernization. The PI’s extensive multi-disciplinary scientific experience makes him eminently qualified to lead CLIMATE-Arch and to coordinate the team of post-docs, PhD students and research assistant based at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for Social Anthropology (ISA).