Newsroom / Press

Fraunhofer IWU and the TU Bergakademie Freiberg have achieved a breakthrough in steel casting technology. Their development of a cold-formable, copper-alloyed austenitic steel cast with TRIP/TWIP properties marks a milestone in material science. It also opens up entirely new perspectives for safety-critical applications. The new alloy offers an unprecedented combination of strength and ductility: it is highly load-bearing and can still undergo plastic deformation.

Who does not know the struggle? Whether several hundred pages of car manuals or extensive legal texts, picking out crucial information is often time-consuming. And will you come across all the relevant entries? A glossary that does not know the search term and countless cross-references make things even more difficult. Such trouble could soon be a thing of the past: A team at Fraunhofer IWU is now helping an AI solution by "feeding" it with extensive technical and legal texts. The team prepares the external input so that search queries (prompts) lead to precise and exhaustive information. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) makes this possible.

To survive in global competition over the long term, companies have to be efficient, cost-effective and use resources wisely in their production operations. AI-based monitoring and control of production based on ECC4P offers medium-sized businesses customized solutions with comprehensive data security from a single source. The research team will be presenting their solutions at the joint Fraunhofer booth at this year’s Hannover Messe trade show.

More specifically, they store electricity generated from solar and wind power in the form of hydrogen (electrolysis) – for extended periods if needed. "Storable" green electricity would be a significant advancement: Today, unused electricity is sometimes given away to neighboring countries on weekends to prevent overloads in the power grid. Conversely, as autonomous energy networks in a compact format, microgrids bridge periods of low energy production, known as "dark doldrums," when there is no wind or sunshine. Fuel cells in the grid then convert the stored hydrogen back into electricity. Thus, these grids are ideally suited for local energy networks and can fit into offshore containers.

YQuality control in hot forming can often only begin when the workpiece has cooled down. Conventional optical quality assurance methods are limited when dealing with hot parts; as the temperature of the workpiece rises, the blurriness in determining its geometry increases. This finding leads to high scrap rates and unnecessary costs due to process-related quality defects. The GreenHiTemp project offers a promising solution with thermal imaging, enabling reliable predictions during the process instead of relying on post-production checks.

You can find them in many household appliances, building technology, and countless pipe and hydraulic lines: small, cylindrical parts manufactured through deep drawing processes. The material is under strain during shaping: Potential consequences are unwanted thinning, surface damage, or cracks. The solution is ultrasonic vibrations - these reduce friction significantly within the material and in contact with the tools. In the VibroDraw process, Fraunhofer IWU, in collaboration with MARK Metallwarenfabrik GmbH and DEVAD GmbH, has successfully integrated ultrasonic vibrations into industrially relevant deep drawing processes with cycle rates of up to 500 strokes per minute.

The facade defines the first impression of a building. Is it worth taking a closer look? Are there elements that set it apart from its (built) surroundings? Even small design accents can make the difference between 'attractive' and 'does not appeal to me.' The Fraunhofer IWU now offers a solution for architects and builders who seek equally appealing and cost-effective options: striking facade elements with reliefs that have nearly limitless shape and color possibilities and do not require expensive forming tools.

Fraunhofer Institutes for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU and for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials Research IFAM have made a breakthrough in materials research. The composite material HoverLIGHT sets new standards for the construction of machine tools: by combining aluminum foam and particle-filled hollow spheres, HoverLIGHT achieves an unprecedented combination of lightness, stiffness, and vibration damping. In a joint project with an industrial partner, the two Fraunhofer Institutes have demonstrated for the first time that HoverLIGHT can dampen vibrations in series machines by a factor of 3. All this comes with a weight saving of 20% compared to the original assembly.

Present-day medical procedures burden patients as little as possible. Surgeons should avoid damaging tissue on the precisely defined path to the site of surgical intervention, which is especially true for operations on sensitive organs such as the brain. For certain brain tumors, surgeons choose the gentlest access to the brain – through the nose. Here, state-of-the-art technology comes into play: it visualizes what the doctor cannot see from the outside. Precise, high-resolution image data of the patient, as provided by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), serves as a "map" for navigation; the operating surgeon sees this image data as a projection in data glasses. A central component, the handpiece for attaching the surgical instruments, is being developed and 3D-printed at the Fraunhofer IWU.

For 15 years now, researchers at the Dresden branch of the Fraunhofer IWU have been working on the additive technology LPBF (Laser Powder Bed Fusion), in which a laser beam melts metallic powder layer by layer locally at the points where the component grows. In this process, the entire physical and digital process chain must be mastered, to create a functioning component from powder. Adapted scanning strategies that define the sequence, length, alignment, and spacing of the laser paths are a promising approach for LPBF. They help to produce components that are more delicate, homogeneous, dimensionally accurate, and with improved surfaces.