Collaborative Research Center 1120

 

Precision Manufacturing by Controlling Melt Dynamics and Solidification in Production Processes

It is difficult for manufacturing processes involving molten phases, such as metal casting, plastic injection molding, welding processes, and thermal cutting to meet the increasing demands for high-component precision, which can only be achieved with great efforts in the process set-up and post-processing steps.

Due to volume contraction during solidification, uneven cooling due to limited energy transport, and uncontrolled structural formation, a plurality of component inaccuracies occur, which have a significant impact on component precision.

To overcome this current limit in the production of a high-precision parts from melt-based processes, a thorough understanding of melt formation, internal dynamics from external and internal driving forces and processes in the melt solidification stage is necessary.

However, in particular, heat transfer, material conditions and energy transport through liquid phases influence the solidification and volume-changing crystallization processes. Moreover, temporal and spatial temperature gradients depend on part geometry and process parameters and are difficult to detect, predict and control.

Multi-scale Control of Melt-based Manufacturing Processes

The proposed collaborative research center addresses these research topics with the aim to give a comprehensive description of melt-based manufacturing technologies such as casting, injection molding, welding, cutting, additive manufacturing and melt based coating.

For these processes, in which the material is at least temporarily in a liquid phase, a multi-scale description of the involved physical and material based processes will be developed, so as to increase part precision by at least one order of magnitude.

To achieve this objective, in a basic research approach, all physical and material-related sub-processes that are involved in melt formation and melt dynamics will be characterized using high-resolution methods in time and space.

Based on this analysis, a deep understanding of the relationships between the sub-processes will be developed, including nanoscale nucleation processes up to macroscopic component distortion.

The third pillar of the research center is dedicated to new scientific approaches for controlling cooling conditions, energy transfer in the melt phase, and solidification as well as microstructure formation.

The main result of the proposed collaborative research center is multi-scale control of melt-based manufacturing processes from melt formation through melt flow properties and melt solidification as a prerequisite for an increased precision in the production of melt-engineered components.