Function-oriented production on the basis of characteristic process signatures

 

The growing demand for optimized components, for example in the automotive industry or medical technology, requires the development of new analytical methods with regard to the relationship between manufacturing processes and materials. The concept of so-called process signatures is an innovative engineering and scientific approach that summarizes all interactions between material and process. This new way of looking at and describing materials should make it possible to process them in an even more targeted way so that they can be optimally used to meet the respective requirements. The reason for this is that it has so far been difficult to specifically adjust near-surface properties, so-called edge zones, such as residual stress and hardness, in production. In addition to time and cost savings in development and production, the quality and service life of components can thus be increased.

This way of thinking and methodology is applied to various manufacturing processes. At WZL the subproject F02 is located, which deals with spark erosion. The work program contains empirical as well as analytical and numerical methods based on the fundamental thermodynamic equations for the development of a process signature representative for manufacturing processes with thermal main effect. For this the implementation of suitable measurement techniques for temporally and locally high-resolution temperature measurement during single and sequential discharges takes place. On this basis, the material stresses and the resulting material modifications are determined experimentally and a holistic simulation of the effect chain from energy input to material modification is carried out.

Further information can be found on the website of the research project process signatures.