Funding for cross-border "3D printing" center of excellence

Resource-efficient component innovations are an essential prerequisite for the sustainable use of resources in many areas, such as the mobility sector, mechanical and plant engineering, and energy technology. Additive manufacturing processes offer an attractive option for designing highly complex and efficient lightweight structures. Based on a digital model, they require only a few manufacturing steps to produce components with unprecedented geometric complexity. What's more, additive manufacturing processes do not require tools, which means that low-volume products in particular can be manufactured economically.

However, the application of additive manufacturing in the industrial environment is complex: the focus is not only on the layer-by-layer construction of components, but also on the entire process chain, from design to material and printing to post-processing. In order to better exploit the potential of additive manufacturing, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular often lack the monetary, technical or capacitive resources. Therefore, one of the main objectives of the project is to support these companies in particular in the introduction or further development of already existing additive manufacturing projects (process and product innovations).

The research project is funded by the European Regional Development Fund ERDF (Interreg VI-A Bavaria/Germany Austria), and from the Bavarian side the TH Rosenheim (lead partner), the Lightweight Construction Competence Center (LLK) and the Institute for Transfer and Cooperation (ITZ) of the Landshut University of Applied Sciences as well as the University of Passau are represented. The Austrian partners are: University of Innsbruck, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria and Paris Lodron University Salzburg (PLUS). 

"By establishing a joint competence center for component innovations in the border region of Bavaria and Austria and by bundling the specific competences of the research partners as well as by working on current research tasks, companies should benefit from the technical-scientific synergy effects," Prof. Dr. Otto Huber (Landshut University of Applied Sciences) explains the goal of the project.

New design methods and optimized additive manufacturing processes for resource-efficient products, especially in the field of metal 3D printing, are to be made possible in this way. Structures suitable for production and lightweight construction with robust, reproducible and quality-assured manufacturing processes will be developed. These are then to be transferred into product and process innovations together with the associated companies in order to contribute to strengthening and securing the technical and economic development of SMEs in the assisted region.

In addition to the scientific partners, representatives of the companies DATAWIN (Ergolding), ARRI (Munich, Stephanskirchen), Flottweg (Vilsbiburg) and ODU Steckverbindungssysteme (Mühldorf) took part in the meeting in Landshut. Through the cooperation, they want to build up know-how in the field of metal 3D printing and use the diverse competences of the colleges and universities.

The scientific partners contribute special competencies in the following areas:

• FH Oberösterreich has been working for years on the processing of steels using Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) and on the additive build-up of tool steels using Laser Metal Deposition (LMD), especially in the process parameter development of steel alloys.
• The research focus of TH Rosenheim is in the areas of design of components for additive manufacturing by Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) and in the area of digitization.
• The FORWISS Institute at the University of Passau is concerned with data processing and quality assurance for additive manufacturing in addition to classical image processing and optical metrology.
• Electron microscopic and X-ray diffraction characterization is the focus at the University of Salzburg and, in recent years, the expansion to microstructure characterization of light metal structures.
• The University of Innsbruck has in-depth competences especially in the fields of LPBF and alloy development.
• The LLK of the Landshut University of Applied Sciences contributes its competences in product development, material analysis and mechanics for cellular structures and light metals as well as structural mechanics.

Already at this first meeting, ideas were presented by the companies with the question of how their own products can be improved, optimized for lightweight construction or manufactured more efficiently through the use of additive manufacturing. The involvement of the Bavarian-Austrian project partners and their competences can provide valuable assistance in the realization. A tour of the laboratories of LLK, Materials Research and Additive Manufacturing at Landshut University of Applied Sciences rounded off the meeting. In the next step, the scientific partners of the project will collect and analyze the practical ideas of the Austrian and Bavarian companies and coordinate the further procedure.