Smart Production

Digitalised production, additive manufacturing and biomimetics are megatrends in research and production and will significantly change the value chains of most industrial companies. Industry 4.0 key technologies, e.g. the Internet of Things, IPv6 and OPC UA, cloud services, big data and artificial intelligence, virtual technologies, intelligent sensors and actuators, are to maintain the competitiveness of European industry in the globalised economy.

Our mission is to significantly increase the performance of plastics processing in terms of product quality, but also process flexibility, efficiency, reproducibility and output through holistic process analysis, modelling and digitalisation.

Our projects

In Evolution#4, strategies are being developed for the 4th industrial revolution in aircraft construction, whose manufacturing processes are still characterised by a large proportion of manual activities. Hybrid RTM aims at inline quality control of the fibre composite manufacturing process RTM by applying phenomenological modelling. InQCIM aims to realise a new interdisciplinary approach to the processing of thermoplastics: The intelligent injection mould as a cyber-physical system. Similarly, the SORIM project uses data-based modelling, but with the goal of a self-optimising injection moulding machine for elastomer processing. The NovoTube project addresses efficient and flexible production of hollow profiles.

Biomimetics is the transfer of models, systems and elements of nature to complex (technical) issues. While biological (composite) materials can be both rigid and fracture-resistant due to their microstructure, this is usually not the case for technical materials such as plastics. BiomimicPolymers, takes the skeleton of the deep-sea sponge Euplectella aspergillum as a model to use it to develop new plastic-based multilayer materials that are both stiff and tough.