Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology
Together with our partners, we develop solutions to make newly developed lightweight materials suitable for series production. Among other things, we determine material properties and forming limits, for example for
- press‑hardened steels (manganese‑boron steel 22MnB5 / 1.5528),
- QP steels,
- titanium, aluminum, and magnesium alloys,
- multiphase steels (DP, TRIP, CP),
- metal–plastic composites, and
- structured sheet metals.
We make our results from combinations of tool and workpiece materials tested in model tools and demonstrators available to users of these sheet metal materials.
We have extensive experience in processing organically coated thin sheets. A wide range of coating variants has been investigated using special active tool materials (plastics, spray‑compacted aluminum). A particular focus is placed on testing and optimizing the tribological system (tool material, coating, lubricant, sheet material) in order to provide users with reliable processing parameters and guidelines for tool design.