Christian Haase receives funding for NanoMatFutur research group

 

BMBF grants 1.6 million euros for the development of new metallic materials for additive manufacturing

The "BMBF-Nachwuchswettbewerb NanoMatFutur" (BMBF Young Scientists Competition NanoMatFutur) is an essential part of the Federal Government's high-tech strategy within the framework program “Vom Material zur Innovation" (From Material to Innovation). This program allows the promotion of young, excellent junior scientists in the field of materials science and engineering by the approval of their own research project.

Now, the research project “ MatAM - Design of Additively Manufactured High-Performance Materials for the Automotive Industry) of our group leader Dr. Christian Haase has been approved with a funding amount of 1.6 million euros. Dr. Haase received his doctorate at the Institute for Physical Metallurgy and Materials Physics at the RWTH Aachen University and has been group leader of the research group "Integrated Computational Materials Engineering" at the Steel Institute since 2016.

Additive manufacturing technologies – also known as 3D printing - have numerous advantages and are about to revolutionize the production of metallic components. However, broad industrial application demands for alloys that are specifically designed for this process. This requires a better understanding of the production technology as well as fundamental knowledge about the microstructural mechanisms occurring in metallic materials. For the strongly interdisciplinary research approach the facilities of the Steel Institute, the Chair for Digital Additive Production and the Central Facility for Electron Microscopy within the Research Center for Digital Photonic Production are used.

The aim of the research project is the development of metallic high-performance materials for laser-based additive manufacturing of components for the automotive industry. An agile material design approach is being developed, which is characterized by a combination of computer-aided and physical alloy screening. The aim is to control the heterogeneities formed in the material during the additive manufacturing process, in particular to control heterogeneous distribution of alloying elements resulting from segregation phenomena due to the solidification process. These heterogeneities should also be used for the precise adjustment of local mechanical properties. This segregation-based alloy and microstructure design is a paradigm shift in the development of new materials for additive manufacturing.