Technologies

INLINE-BLASTING PROCESSES FOR CLEANING, ACTIVATION AND REPAIR OF SURFACES | Classical compressed air blasting requires the use of blasting booths or complex temporary protective measures to clean surfaces or remove coatings. Much simpler is to use compact and mobile vacuum suction blasting prior to, for example, adhesive bonding, painting/lacquering, coating, or repair work. In this method an industrial vacuum system generates a reduced pressure in a closed head through which the abrasive is accelerated onto the surface and after the blasting process is immediately extracted again. This means that dust-free blasting processes can even be performed in-line under sensitive production conditions.

RESIDUE-FREE AND DRY CLEANING OF COMPONENTS | Contaminants and release agents can be removed from components using CO2 snow blasting processes. This in-line technique involves the sudden expansion of liquid CO2, whereby solid crystals of CO2 snow form in a nozzle on introducing compressed air. These are blasted at the surface to be cleaned. There is no damage due to the immediate sublimation, and even sensitive surfaces can be effectively cleaned. Compared to conventional blasting grit, the CO2 snow evaporates and can be extracted without leaving residues. The process is eco-friendly because CO2 can be recovered as a byproduct from many chemical processes.

Metal nanoparticles are becoming increasingly important in many industrial sectors. Being applied as additives or functional coatings, they can equip various products with new properties, such as catalytic or antibacterial effectiveness. However, the technical complexity and the time and resource costs of the current manufacturing processes have significantly limited potential applications of the metal nanoparticles up to now. The Fraunhofer IFAM has developed an innovative solution for this by using a novel atmospheric pressure (AP) plasma technique.

In the area of casting technology, Fraunhofer IFAM has a broad technology portfolio for a wide range of industrial applications. This includes equipment in the following areas: Die casting / Squeeze casting, low pressure die casting, investment casting and gravity casting.

"INTELLIGENT" CAST COMPONENTS FOR THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY, URBAN AIR MOBILITY AND MANY MORE | Materials, components, and structures with a certain degree of inherent "intelligence" are a central research topic at Fraunhofer IFAM. A typical field of application is the monitoring of mechanically loaded components in operation in all its gradations: from simple load monitoring to damage detection and localization to the prediction of the remaining component lifetime. The basis of such capabilities is a technical nervous system that detects loads and thus provides a basis for their evaluation: sensors.

RELIABLE IDENTIFICATION OF CAST COMPONENTS | The reliable identification of castings is an attractive goal in many respects. For example, it permits the unambiguous assignment of production parameters to a specific component and thus enables quality documentation, as is increasingly required not only in the aerospace industry. In addition, it forms the basis for process control based on the individual component, as is being pursued in the context of Industry 4.0 approaches.

Fraunhofer IFAM has been working on electromobility and the casting of electric drive components since 2008. The focus is on the development and testing of new casting concepts and design methods for electric motor castings. The field of expertise has been expanded to include the analysis and evaluation of castings for the body construction of electric vehicles, with a particular focus on giga-casting.

With its expertise in the field of casting technology, Fraunhofer IFAM supports industrial customers in the casting technology implementation of an idea from the concept to the first prototype to the applicable product. Different casting processes and materials are available suitable for the respective problem.

HYDROGEN BARRIER COATINGS FOR TANKS, PIPELINES AND MORE | For hydrogen tanks and the like, metallic materials (e.g. steel or aluminum) are still predominantly used today, either as solid materials or as liners in polymeric materials, which constitute an enormous additional weight. In order that lightweight materials such as fiber reinforced polymers can also be used for fuel tanks etc., which do not provide a sufficient barrier to hydrogen permeation themselves, Fraunhofer IFAM is developing barrier coatings which strongly reduce the permeability of hydrogen and thus offer versatile possibilities for lightweight construction in the aerospace industry, but also in other areas.

Laser Powder Bed Fusion is a powder bed based additive manufacturing process that is most widely used in the industry. The Fraunhofer IFAM deals with material and process development along the entire process chain of laser beam melting. Our powder analytics can be used to characterize the flow behavior and packing behavior of the raw material powder, which significantly influence the construction parameters. The complete parameter development for various materials (titanium, aluminum or steel alloys) is carried out at Fraunhofer IFAM.