Chair of Materials and Surface Engineering
Materials and Surface Engineering

New experimental press for the production of hybrid material composites


The company Mieruch & Hofmann from Limbach-Oberfrohna developed a special joining system for hybrid metal-plastic composites for the WOT professorship, which achieves particularly high cooling rates of significantly more than 100 Kelvin per minute.

Multi-material lightweight structures have been used for many years, for example in aircraft construction. However, the production of these components takes many hours. Within the framework of the MERGE Cluster of Excellence, the WOT researchers want to demonstrate a significant reduction in manufacturing cycle times and bring existing lightweight construction potential into further application. The aim is to develop combined coating and joining processes for multi-material lightweight structures and to precisely research the influence of the parameters of the joining process on the inner material structure in the joining zone. The different materials are joined using a hot pressing process in which the thermoplastic melts and thus bonds with the coated surface of the metal. In the process, the plastic forms a pervasive network with the coating, so that a very large number of bonds are created at the molecular level and a high adhesive strength is achieved. The process control has a decisive influence on the properties of the entire composite. The decisive parameters are the time span in which the molten polymer can penetrate the surface layer of the metal, the applied contact pressure during joining and the cooling rate after joining. The latter determines the crystallisation of the thermoplastic partner in the joining area and thus the strength of the joint. Thanks to the new, customised system, it is now possible to reproducibly vary a wide variety of sample geometries with specifically adjustable temperature and contact pressure during heating, melting and cooling and thus to generate all relevant material states at the metal coating-polymer interface.

Further information:

Central press release:
https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/tu/pressestelle/aktuell/9745

MERGE Cluster of Excellence:
https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/MERGE/

Company Mieruch & Hofmann:
https://www.mieruchundhofmann.de/

 

Picture (Photo: Diana Schreiterer)
Tino Mieruch (r.), managing director of the company Mieruch & Hofmann, and Axel Dittes from the WOT professorship look at a sample of aluminium and polyamide made with the new experimental press.

3.10.2019 – Equipment of the professorship ( )

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