Institute of Materials Research - Component Manufacturing

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Component Manufacturing

FSW equipment

The FSW is performed on a very stiff bed plate milling machine (operating range 500 x 1000 mm) that has been continuously upgraded and modified to fulfil the friction stir welding needs. Currently online tool temperature as well as load and torque measurements are used to control the process and to speed up the welding parameter optimisation procedure. The tool load and temperature measurements can be combined with the output of up to 16 thermocouples fixed at various locations on the plates and the clamps. Therefore this FSW data acquisition set-up is perfectly suited for the generation of input or validation data for FSW process simulations.

Laser beam welder

Nd-YAG-Laser equipped with vacuum chamber and specimen manipulator for precision welding of titanium alloys. Permanent power: 100 W, pulse power: 6.5 kW

FEA

High performance software (e.g. ANSYS, ABAQUS) is available for Finite Element Analyses (FEA) of structural behaviour of components and micromechanical behaviour of materials.

Furnaces operated in vacuum, air, or defined atmosphere

In the institute several furnaces with chamber sizes up to 60x60x60cm and a maximum temperature capability of 1750°C are available. In vacuum (typical 10-6 mbar) or in a defined atmosphere (N2, H2, Ar etc.) a maximum temperature of 1600°C can be used.

Winding machines for fabrication of ceramic matrix composites

Two in-house designed and built computer-controlled winding machines using CADWind™ software package for the fabrication of ceramic matrix composites (CMC)

Planetary ball-mills

Two planetary ball-mills are currently employed: a conventional Retzsch PM 4 and a Retzsch PM 4000-DLR, which was designed especially for mechanical alloying of powders. This special ball-mill was developed in a cooperation between the institute and the manufacturer.