Institute of Micro- und Nanotechnologies

The Thuringian Materials Day is a one-day conference that has been held since 1994 and aims to promote scientific exchange between the Thuringian universities in Ilmenau, Jena and Weimar and Thuringian industry and business. The event takes place once a year and rotates between the university locations mentioned. This year the event was held on 14 March at the TU Ilmenau. The event focuses on the topics of materials research, application and testing. It offers keynote speeches, insights into current research work at Thuringia's research locations and a poster and industry exhibition. In the course of promoting young talent, a workshop for Ilmenau schoolchildren was also offered for the first time this year. Under the theme of circular economy, insights into the plastics circular economy were offered through lectures, discussions and hands-on experiments.

As part of the poster exhibition, the submitted posters were evaluated and awarded prizes. In order to participate in the poster award, in addition to submitting a poster, a poster pitch must also be made. In this, the entrants must present their poster content in three minutes in a way that is as comprehensible and catchy as possible. This year, the poster prize was awarded to three participants. The voting was done by a scientific jury of professors and organisers as well as by voting of the guests present at the event (audience award). This year's poster prize went to a joint contribution on the topic of "Plastic-metal hybrid composites joined by means of reactive Al/Ni multilayers" from the departments of Production Engineering (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) and Materials in Electrical Engineering (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology).

The poster deals with the topic of the application of reactive Al/Ni multilayers as a joining element or energy source for the macroscopic joining of plastic-metal hybrid compounds. The formation of hybrid plastic-metal joints by means of reactive multilayers offers particular advantages compared to other thermal joining processes that are used for this material pairing. In particular, the minimally invasive thermal energy input and the simple handling are worth mentioning. Current research work at the Department of Production Engineering is focussing on further increasing the composite strength. The focus is on the structure introduced into the metal surface and its influence on the reaction.
This topic is being addressed in the DFG research project "Tailored heat release characteristics for reactive joining processes" (DFG BE3198/7-1). Possibilities of joining different material pairs by means of reactive Al/Ni multilayers and their properties are being investigated. In addition to the basic application possibilities, the research focuses on the characterisation of the joining mechanisms and the resulting bond strength, the temperature-time regime in the joining zone and the possibilities for controlling the reaction behaviour. Marcus Glaser, Dr. Jörg Hildebrand and Prof. Jean Pierre Bergmann from the Department of Production Engineering and Sebastian Matthes and Prof. Peter Schaaf from the Department of Electrical Engineering Materials are responsible for the project.

The poster was created and presented by Marcus Glaser. In addition to the audience award of the TU Ilmenau, the contribution of Lucie Steinmüller (INNOVENT e.V.) on the production of green hydrogen as well as the contribution of Marius Grad (OTH Regensburg/TU Ilmenau) on increasing the service life of titanium implants were awarded.

Source: Marcus Glaser, Department of Production Engineering