Department of materials engineering

Contact information

Head Assoc. Prof. Dario Iljkić

Address Department of Materials Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
Zgrada tehničkog fakulteta
Vukovarska 58
51000 Rijeka

The primary research and scientific fields of interest at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is the research of materials, material properties (mechanical, chemical, physical), testing of the material properties, modification of the material properties (heat treatment and surface engineering, metal protection) as well as the analysis of metal service behaviour.

The History of the Department dates back to the year 1962, when according to a Statute of the Faculty of Engineering University of Zagreb, the Department of Material Testing was founded.
At the beginning of 1974, when the Faculty Statute was modified, the activity of the Department for Material Testing proceeded as the newly established Department of Technology and Organisation, later renamed as the Department of Production Mechanical Engineering, which embraced the activity of several departments of that time.

With the aim of making the field of Engineering Materials noticeable in the establishment of the Faculty and with respect to the importance of materials in general, especially in Mechanical Engineering, Naval Architecture and Electrical Engineering, which are the principle courses of study at the Faculty of Engineering University of Rijeka, the (Independent) Chair of Materials was founded in 2001, when it was separated from the Department of Production Mechanical Engineering.

In 2005 the Department of Materials Science and Engineering was founded in order to broaden information and knowledge of materials. At the Department, the following research is carried out: new materials and possibilities to improve the already existing materials through becoming familiar with and through changing their properties, through processing, application and appropriate construction material selection according to the requirements, and working and economic conditions, in the focus of world market competition. New cognitions of materials, which are necessary for present and future engineers in mechanical engineering, naval architecture and electrical engineering, are the challenge to all the members of the Department.
The members of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in collaboration with Bay Zoltan Institute for Materials Science and Technology, from Budapest, Hungary, participate in the bilateral project under the name “Numerical Optimisation of Steel Quenching”.

Within the Department there are two chairs: Chair of Materials Engineering, Chair head Assoc. Prof. D. Sc. Domagoj Rubeša and Chair of Structure and Material Properties, Chair head Assoc. Prof. D. Sc. Loreta Pomenić. Within the Department of Materials Science and Engineering there are also three laboratories: Laboratory of Material Testing, Laboratory of Heat Treatment and the Chemical laboratory.