digitale event / live October 26, 2020 || media center online  /  October 26, 2020  -  September 30, 2021

Fraunhofer Solution Days 2020

Topic day 1: Systems and mechanical engineering – improving productions processes

Fraunhofer Solution Days 2020

In the presentation »Innovation of serial production with digital printing and laser processes« in the auditorium 1 on Monday, October 26, 2020, 13:30 - 13:50 , Prof. Reinhard R. Baumann will explain how digital manufacturing will revolutionize mass production.

At the virtual booth of the Fraunhofer lighthouse project »Go Beyond 4.0« you can discuss with our experts via video or text chat on October 26, 2020 from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Here you can learn more about the use of digital printing and laser processes for the innovation of mass production. Using demonstrator examples from the three promising markets of automotive, aerospace and lighting technology, the six partner institutes in the Fraunhofer lighthouse project will show that the use of these digital production technologies makes small quantities of individualized mass products possible.

Automotive

© Fraunhofer IWU

In order to pick up on the trend towards individualization and enhancement in automotive industry and to achieve a variant diversity with decreasing batch sizes, we focus on differentiation and increased efficiency in production by means of printing and laser processes.

Using the example of printed conductor lines/cable harnesses, sensors and control elements of a car door, we will show you the innovative potential of our developments. In a car door, operating elements were integrated as printed switches and lighting, and an electric motor was electrically contacted on aluminum and plastic surfaces. Thereby, robot-guided dispensing or inkjet printing processes are used. A new process is also used to apply copper wire lines together with an insulating sheath directly to the component. This saves the standard installation of a cable harness segment.

Aviation

© Fraunhofer IFAM

To meet the increasing demand for carbon fiber and glass fiber reinforced plastics and structural health monitoring, we are integrating Smart Systems into composite materials for lightweight construction.

Using a wing element of a commercial aircraft as an example, we demonstrate the integration of temperature, capacitive and impact sensors as well as UHF antennas and LEDs in fiber-reinforced plastics by using digital printing and laser processes.

Lighting

© Fraunhofer IOF

Intelligent lighting fixtures through customized light distributions for lighting applications of the 21st century are made possible by printed optics. Transparency, precision and shape accuracy of these optics pose a challenge in production.

We show how printing and laser techniques can be used to manufacture refractive and diffractive optical elements using the example of a car headlamp. For the demonstrator, macroscopic 3D optics were produced using inkjet printing, whereby the polymers used (ORMOCER®) have optical properties similar to those of glass. The digital manufacturing technologies also enable the integration of additional functionalities, such as conductor paths, LEDs and photodetectors, directly into the optics.