Research and Development

The R&D engineers and technicians are key players in the Group’s research and development projects. Integrated into teams guided by the research customers, they ensure that technical goals are achieved and deadlines met.

Because they carry out projects in applied research and have access to very diverse industrial equipment, the engineers and technicians in the research and development teams rapidly acquire experience and expertise in the Group’s businesses.

The young engineers, who are trained over a period of years at our research centres, have the opportunity to pursue a career anywhere at the Group.

After my Physical Engineering and Materials degree at INSA in Lyon, I decided to pursue a career in Research, and so completed a doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering at the Centre for Material Forming (CEMEF) at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris. I was introduced to the world of stainless steel during a short stay in Ugine. I then joined Aubert & Duval in 1992, where I proposed, headed and applied projects in the area of transformation (forging, lamination, etc.) for a range of various products (forged and laminated bars, moulded parts and the like) and grades. My work has progressively extended to other units at Aubert & Duval, where I am currently coordinating all of the company’s R&D activities in this area.

My career path: I followed a technical course specializing in Materials at the ESPCI (Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Education Institute), completed with postgraduate studies in corporate management at the IAE (Corporate Administration Institute) before joining Trappes Research Centre (CRT). It was there I developed my skills in materials forming, the development of new products, customer and factory technical support and international project management. I was then promoted to the Moulding Division of Aubert & Duval at the Pamiers factory, for the Aircraft Engine Product Line: I am client manager for Rolls-Royce, ITP, Turboméca and Pratt & Whitney Canada in the Industrial Design Office (BCI).

My job: I supervise a team of six people who carry out various assignments, including, amongst others: drawing up technical proposals for our customers, handling technical matters with customers on a daily basis, designing production processes for new parts, developing and industrializing these processes and continuously improving existing processes (from a technical perspective as well as in terms of time and budget). To complement this, I am also involved in starting up the new Airforge factory (40 kT) by providing technical support and preparing new optimized processes for this new equipment. I act as the interface between the customers and the different divisions at the factory.

ERAMET has several research partnerships with universities and specialised laboratories.

- ERAMET funds theses and collaborates notably with the Ecoles des Mines d’Albi (tooling), Ecoles des Mines de Nancy (surface treatment, processing and metallurgy) and the centre of the Ecole des Mines de Sophia Antipolis (digital processing simulation).

- In 2005, ERAMET Alloys launched a collaboration with the Ecole Centrale in the microstructure of superalloys. 

- ERAMET Norway and ERAMET Research have a longstanding collaboration with the University of Trondheim.

Every year we offer stage subjects to students from engineering schools