Metal foam applications in railway industry and mining

The automobile industry shows us the direction. Vehicles shall continually become lighter, more efficient, ecologically and, at the same time, stay affordable. The customer's increasing ecological sensibility and a general social responsibility in the use of resources bring issues such as electro mobility or the application of high-performance materials into the focus of developmental work. Automobile manufacturers such as BMW are implementing what no one deemed to be possible before - the production of car bodies made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) in series. A comparable light weight innovation technology was generated by researchers of the Fraunhofer Institute of Machine Tools and Forming Industry with a different kind of material: metal foams. The following two examples are taken from two different industries and shall illustrate the application of metal foam.