TUM experts for new Fraunhofer facility

Cast from a single mold: TUM and Fraunhofer join together to shape the future of production technologies

The objective of the IGCV is to consolidate research and development in the fields of lightweight casting technologies, fiber-reinforced composites and automated production and to generate science-based innovations for industry. The facility will also promote interdisciplinary research in the German core industries: automotive engineering, aircraft construction, mechanical engineering and plant engineering.

Three joint appointments and an additional six TUM professors who will take on simultaneous leadership functions at Fraunhofer facilities and institutes show how strongly intermeshed the two research institutes are. TUM President Wolfgang A. Herrmann: "The many years of collaboration between the Technical University of Munich and Fraunhofer is a long success story. By addressing casting, composites and processing technologies the two institutions are demonstrating their focus on research topics relevant to society. The combination of strengths in the areas of materials, production technologies and the Industrial Internet has the potential for development of innovative lightweight structures that could set new standards for science and industry. At the same time the important technology locations in the metropolitan region are drawing closer together by making practical use of their complementary expert potentials."

Production technologies is a traditional favorite field of the TUM in the field of Mechanical Engineering, with numerous research partners in science and industry. The TUM and Fraunhofer (FhG) are consolidating their expertise at the new institution in the fields of casting, composite materials and intelligent automation. In an interdisciplinary partnership they will jointly address future-oriented developments in the automotive engineering, aircraft construction mechanical engineering and plant engineering sectors. One main area of interest will be the provision of innovative concepts for lightweight construction, a decisive factor in technological progress in many field of engineering, in particular in automotive engineering and in the aerospace and aviation sectors.

The new institution will integrate the Fraunhofer project group "Resource Efficient Mechatronic Processing Machines (RMV)" with its Industrial Internet expertise (Prof. Gunther Reinhart) and the institute section "Functionally Integrated Lightweight Design FIL" of the Fraunhofer ICT with its expertise in composites (Prof. Klaus Drechsler). The casting technologies group of the Chair of Metal Forming and Casting (Prof. Wolfram Volk) will define new joint FhG/TUM focus areas.

The headquarters in Augsburg will be home to management, administration and the IGCV fields of research Automation, Processing and Composites. A new casting technologies department will be built at the Garching site. Furthermore, a new FhG research building is being constructed on the TUM Campus in Garching. The new facility is being conceived as a future Fraunhofer Institute.

The IGCV is jointly headed by Professors Reinhart, Drechsler and Volk, with Prof. Reinhart acting as the first spokesman.

For further information see:
The Internet page of the IGCV: www.igcv.fraunhofer.de