Interdisciplinary Research Activities
MATERIALS CHEMISTRY is involved in various publicly funded scientific projects. According to the fundamental, knowledge-driven approach outlined in our research philosophy the German Science Foundation (DFG) is one of our main funding agencies. Examples of current projects are given below:
SFB-TR 87: "Pulsed High Power Plasmas"
The collaborative research center SFB-TR 87 is one of a kind! Experts from a wide range of disciplines collaborate to find connections between materials properties and plasma parameters, and to obtain a detailed and comprehensive understanding of them than ever before.
Following the successful first funding phase, the goal from 2014 to 2018 is to demonstrate for the first time the overall applicability of this concept based on the example of ceramic and barrier layers. SFB-TR 87 aims to overcome the empirical method. The goal is to understand in detail and consistently the process chain from energy
supply via parameters of generated plasmas to material properties of deposited functional layers. With the acquired expertise, it should in future be possible to knowledge-based and efficiently develop new manufacturing processes and nanostructured layer systems, or to optimize established ones.
EU Horizon 2020: Il Trovatore
The Fukushima Daiichi event in 2011 has demonstrated the need for improved nuclear energy safety, which can be ensured by the development of accident-tolerant fuels (ATFs). ATFs are expected to overcome the inherent technical shortcomings of the standard zircaloy/UO2 fuels, thus relieving the industry from the huge financial penalty associated with beyond-design-basis accidents leading to fuel cladding material failure and release of radioactive fission products to the power plant containment and the environment. The main objective of the IL TROVATORE project is to identify and optimise some of the most promising ATF cladding material concepts for Gen-II/III light water reactors (LWRs) before validating them in an industrially-relevant environment, i.e., under neutron irradiation in PWR-like water. The innovative ATF cladding material concepts proposed in IL TROVATORE are expected to demonstrate significant improvement in performance compared to the current fuel cladding materials, thus helping to take an important step towards an improved nuclear energy safety worldwide. The development of ATF clads will eliminate redundant safety systems, improving the market profile of current reactor designs, and the overall envisaged innovation will strengthen the competitiveness of European industries in both nuclear and non‐nuclear sectors. To achieve its ambitious objectives, IL TROVATORE relies on academic excellence and industrial support, while also involving standardisation bodies and nuclear safety regulatory authorities to accelerate the transfer of key innovation to market. IL TROVATORE is designed to help addressing the dire global societal and industrial demand for safer nuclear energy, hence it relies on an international collaboration between Europe, the USA and Japan.
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SFB 761: "Stahl - ab initio"
For the first time it is exploited in SFB 761, how ab initio approaches may lead to a detailed understanding and thus to a specific improvement of material development. The challenge lies in the combination of abstract natural science theories with rather engineering like established concepts. Aiming at the technological target of the development of a new type of structural materials based on Fe-Mn-C alloys the combination of ab initio and engineering methods is new, but could be followed quite successfully.
SPP 1676: "Dry Forming – Sustainable Production through dry machining in metal forming"
The central contribution of this priority program SPP 1676 should be to come closer through the creation of new lubricant-free forming processes and the adaptation of relevant technologies the aim of lubricant-free factory.
In order to make the dry forming economically applicable, the load capacity of the tools is to be increased by a targeted surface technology with increasing strain or stress are reduced by suitable measures, for example, process-technical adaptations on the side of the forming process. The focus within the priority program is on the fields of metal forming, surface technology and failure modeling.