From June 20th to 21st, 2018, experts from the plastics industry as well as from research met at the University of Osnabrück to discuss new innovations in plastics technology. The event started with Prof. Dr. Rudolf Stauber, Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Project Group Material Recycling and Resource Strategies IWKS. In his lecture, he high-lighted new technologies and trends in lightweight construction and their various application possibilities. In connection with the core idea of recycling management, the use of lightweight materials always focuses on five points: material availability, cost-effec-tiveness, reparability, resource and energy efficiency as well as sustainability. All these criteria must be taken into account in the development of new materials and their use for new products. Fields of application for lightweight construction range from the au-tomotive industry to aerospace technology. Although the development of new materi-als is progressing rapidly, their use in the industry such as automotive engineering is more evolutionary than revolutionary, continued Professor Stauber. The reason: In or-der to guarantee a high degree of efficiency, production processes with production lines are not converted over short periods of time. "The future of materials lies in an in-telligent mixed construction - not just in one material such as carbon fibers or plastics, but in a mix of materials," says Professor Stauber.
In addition to the materials themselves, the conference also addressed topics such as Industry 4.0, additive manufacturing and digitization such as the use of data streams for greater efficiency in production. As part of the accompanying trade exhibition, the participants were also able to inform themselves at the booth of the project group about current research in the area of lightweight construction.
Further information on the Department of Energy Materials and Lightweight Construc-tion of the Fraunhofer Project Group IWKS can be found here