1997 Tribology Gold Medal awarded to Professor Bo Olov Jacobson

Citation

(1998), "1997 Tribology Gold Medal awarded to Professor Bo Olov Jacobson", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 50 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilt.1998.01850aab.014

1997 Tribology Gold Medal awarded to Professor Bo Olov Jacobson

1997 Tribology Gold Medal awarded to Professor Bo Olov Jacobson

This award was made in recognition of his powerful combination of academic and applied capabilities, especially in the field of lubricant properties and behaviour under heavily loaded conditions in bearings.

Professor Jacobson's excellence was recognized at an early stage by his appointment as a full professor with tenure at Lulea University of Technology at the age of 30. Earlier, his PhD thesis at Lund Technical University had presented an entirely new approach to the resolution of elastohydrodynamic point contact problems by introducing the concept of lubricant solidification in a highly loaded central area. His continuing progress, including later the solution of the line contact problem, launched him into the design and construction of advanced high-pressure apparatus in which the limiting shear stress of a solidified lubricant and the solidification behaviour could be measured.

Professor Jacobson expanded the Division of Machine Elements at Lulea by guiding students and technicians in the construction of a wide range of test rigs and by leading and inspiring his students in a variety of research directions such as hydraulic seals, high-pressure rheology, emulsion rheology, screw nut transmission tribology, as well as elastohydrodynamics (EHD).

Professor Bo Olov Jacobson

During 1981-82, he held the post of research fellow with NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA, and in 1985 with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. The period was notable for work on dynamically loaded journal bearings using very high speed photo equipment and a transparent journal.

In 1986 came Professor Jacobson's appointment as Consulting Engineer with SKF Sverige in Gothenburg transferring in the following year to SKF Engineering and Research Centre BV in The Netherlands. His initial task was to apply new tribological and rheological knowledge to the important area of the lubrication of rolling bearings. At the ERC he has provided the critical and expert tribological input to many parts of the SKF Group (and here, too, his natural ability as a teacher has been demonstrated by the popularity of his lectures in the SKF College of Engineering). His work with SKF has covered a wide range of subjects, including: lubricant film collapse in the presence of small amounts of sliding; lubricant film building ability of surfaces of different roughness; a patented grease with reduced temperature sensitivity; bearing lubrication in screw compressors; the development of the SKF New Life Theory and the effects of lubricant contamination in real systems.

Professor Jacobson continued his qualitative and quantitative work in many other directions and, in 1987, he applied his energy and enthusiasm to the initiation of the first Swedish research programme in tribology, to a subsequent programme starting in 1990, and to the EU COST 516 Action in 1995. The organizational and campaigning effort he injected into these projects has ensured their success.

Through his numerous publications, lectures, and industrial seminars he has sought to spread the industrially critical messages of lubricant cleanness, of the need to understand lubricant rheology, and of the role of tribology in industrial economics. He has shown an uncommon ability to combine a broad knowledge of the field of tribology with a remarkable understanding of the scientific fundamentals involved, to combine those with the use of mathematical models as well as test rigs, to address major technological questions of practical industrial importance, and, at the same time, to teach and inspire others.

Professor Jacobson was elected in 1985 to the prestigious Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Having completed his SKF work in July 1997, he is, at present, Full Professor with tenure at Lund University, Sweden.

Professor Jacobson, as one of the world's leading tribologists, has been a unique contributor to the teaching and advancement of tribology and to the industrial advancement of rolling element bearing technology.