Brief description and aims of work
The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen was founded in 1980 with the mission of conducting application-oriented research and development and employs currently about 420 employees. In the areas of process technology, production machines, mechatronics, production metrology and quality as well as technology management, the Fraunhofer IPT offers partners and customers tailor-made and immediately practical solutions for the current production. The department "Laser Materials Processing" of the Fraunhofer IPT develops and qualifies laser manufacturing processes for an efficient use of the laser as a manufacturing tool. In this context, the integration of such laser processes in existing process chains is also part of the work. The group “Ablation & Joining” of the department is specialized on the technology development for laser surface structuring. In particular, the members of this group focus on surface functionalization by laser material ablation, e.g. to reduce friction or to realize a targeted fluid transport with specific micro structures. For these investigations, short and ultra-short pulse laser sources integrated in 5-axis machine tools with a specially developed CAM-software (CAM = Computer-Aided Manufacturing) are utilized.
In the project "LiNaBioFluid", the Fraunhofer IPT is involved in the fabrication of biomimetic surfaces on flat inorganic materials with picosecond laser sources. Moreover, the group is working on the transfer of the generated structures on large-area freeform surfaces aiming at the fabrication of a demonstrator. The Fraunhofer IPT is work package leader in the work package "Exploitation and Dissemination" with particular focus on the identification of new applications for the developed structures and the exploitation of the project results.
Gallery
Figure: 5-axis laser materials processing of an injection mold. Reference: Fraunhofer IPT
Address
Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT, Steinbachstr. 17, 52074 Aachen
Website(s)
http://www.ipt.fraunhofer.de/en.html
Contact person(s)
Ulrike Derra: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.