New Collaborative Research Center at RWTH Aachen
At its spring session in Bonn the German Research Foundation, DFG for short, passed a decision to establish 13 new collaborative research centers – including one at RWTH Aachen.
The new collaborative research center or SFB "Precision Melt Engineering - Precision Manufacturing by Controlling Melt Dynamics and Solidification in Production Processes" will be established October 1, 2014. RWTH Aachen serves as the host university with Professor Dr. Reinhart Poprawe, Head of the Chair of Laser Technology LLT and of the Fraunhofer Institute for Laster Technology ILT, serving as spokesperson. ACCESS e.V. located in Aachen and affiliated with the university has a partial project with the new SFB.
RWTH Aachen's research interest is in attaining a high degree of precision in melting-based processes such as metal casting and plastic injection molding or die casting. A deep understanding of the melting origin and the processes, that occur during the solidification. The goal is a multiscale understanding of the behavior of the melting from the melting origin to the melting flow to solidification and to be able to direct this in a controlled manner. This is a prerequisite for greater precision and avoided process mistakes in and on building components created through melting.
The 13 new collaborative research centers will be funded with 93.1 million Euros for the next three years and nine months. There is an additional 20 percent program lump sum for indirect costs.
The DFG Grants Committee also agreed to extend 19 collaborative research centers for an additional funding period. This includes Transregio-SFB 87 from Ruhr University Bochum, the host university, and RWTH Aachen, which works on the synthesis of nanostructural functional layers through pulsed high-power plasmas. The spokesperson at RWTH Aachen is Professor Jochen Schneider, Ph.D. from the Chair of Materials Chemistry.
Collaborative Research Centers
Collaborative research areas are long-term arranged university institutions established for up to twelve years, in which researchers across various subjects, institutes, subject areas, and faculties work together in a thematically coherent research program. The goal of the interdisciplinary collaboration is to advance and deeply strengthen an innovative research focus at the university through the concentration and coordination of university resources. Universities submitting a proposal are expected to provide adequate basic equipment.