Innovations in forming technologies

Increasing safety and comfort demands bring more and more weight into the vehicle. Strong motors lead to rising fuel consumption. Lightweight construction is a key technology to counteract this development ensuring the future production of safe, comfortable and high performance cars while protecting resources and environment at the same time. Higher process stability, improved material exploitations, and general shortening of process chains are the most important aims of Fraunhofer IWU. The requirements of the future car ask for lightweight construction concepts, in which materials, design, and manufacturing processes harmonize optimally. The usage of lightweight materials is only reasonable when their mechanical characteristics such as stability, stiffness, and temperature resistance are better than those of classic steel. The same is true for the material and production costs. Therefore, Fraunhofer IWU researches on forming and joining technologies in order to achieve the optimum usage of high-strength steels, aluminium, magnesium, and fiber composite materials. New forming technologies as press hardening or electromagnetic forming (EMF) bring positive effects by resource efficiency and energy savings. When developing new materials, it is important to design the whole process chain according to the specific material properties. Press hardening offers an effective method of forming high strength steels. EMF is a high-speed forming technology applicable for shaping, joining, and cutting electrically conductive sheet metal or hollow profile components.