Organization

Under coordination of Prof. Dr. Reimund Neugebauer, Germany's most competent regions of each subject cooperate aiming to attain the scientific fundamentals for an economic production of structural components. Chemnitz University of Technology is the first university of the Free State of Saxony which has managed to coordinate the transregional Collaborative Research Centre. Further project partners are Dresden University of Technology, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU Chemnitz, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS Dresden as well as the Bavarian Laser Center Erlangen.

Manufacturing technologies of the automobile engineering were chosen as an example for a widespread application. Each region masterminds one process chain. Chemnitz is responsible for the process chain of sheet metal forming, Dresden for the production of structural components from fiber composites and Erlangen for casting piezoceramic fiber and sheet modules into innovative lightweight materials through pressure casting.

The works of the transregio are coordinated in three project areas (A-C), whereas area A combines all projects that prepare corresponding modules from piezoceramics for a subsequent processing with the component manufacturing technologies. Area B comprises all projects directly examining the technologies of the component manufacturing. The overall objective of area C is the functional integration in which especially questions on design, simulation of the component behavior, polarisation (activation of the integrated piezoceramics) and on the setting of defined mechanical contact ratio in the limiting layer are explored.

The collaboration and the results of the project areas and single projects are clarified in the following illustration by means of the process chain of forming of aluminum sheet metal with integrated piezo modules.