Jump to main content
Chair of Materials and Surface Engineering
Materials and Surface Engineering
Chair of Materials and Surface Engineering 

DediGrad Collaborative Research Centre approved


In November 2024, the German Research Foundation (DFG) approved the establishment of the Collaborative Research Centre/Transregio (SFB/TRR 402) entitled „Intelligent production technologies for lightweight plastic structures with load-dedicated 3D grading of the reinforcement architecture – DediGrad“. The spokesperson is Chemnitz University of Technology under the leadership of Prof Dr Lothar Kroll. The research team is made up of 27 researchers from TU Chemnitz, TU Dresden, RWTH Aachen University, TU Vienna and Fraunhofer IWU, who will be researching this highly relevant topic over 45 months in the first project phase with a total funding amount of 16.4 million euros.

The Chair of Materials and Surface Technology (WOT) is cooperating with the Institute of Lightweight Engineering and Polymer Technology (ILK) at TU Dresden in a sub-project. The research focus here is on setting a defined fibre orientation in short and long fibre-reinforced plastics (FRP) and a defined grading zone in the transition area to adjacent reinforced or unreinforced substructures. Active alignment of the fibres is to be achieved by external magnetic fields in an isostatic state shortly after the end of the flow movement in injection moulding. To this end, WOT is developing innovative coating processes for the galvanic deposition of customised magnetic layers on carbon fibres (mc-CF). The ILK is researching the production of polymer compounds and the integration and alignment of mc-CF in the polymer matrix using external magnetic excitation. The aim is to enable and scientifically understand the orientation of mc-CF by an external magnetic field.

The innovative approach of the sub-project in the SPP/TRR allows load-adapted fibre distribution and orientation during part production by injection moulding or pressing. This makes it possible to produce polymer-based structural components more resource-efficiently and significantly expands the range of applications.

We are very much looking forward to working with our project partner Dr Anja Winkler and the participating institutes at RWTH Aachen, TU Chemnitz and TU Dresden

WOT contact person is Dipl.-Chem. Dominik Höhlich: dominik.hoehlich@mb.tu-chemnitz.de

Further information can be found in the TU Chemnitz press release at https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/tu/pressestelle/aktuell/12690 .


20.12.2024 – Projects of the professorship ( )