The Plastics Engineering Laboratory focuses on developing products and methods which are holistic and plastic compatible by interlinking teaching, applied research and knowledge transfer into industry. This practice-oriented approach creates the sustainable basis for economic innovative strength.
As students develop their interdisciplinary subject-specific and methodological skills, the focus is on:
Plastics expertise:
Materials and compounding
- Thermoplastics
- Thermosetting plastics
- Elastomers
Tools
- Design of injection moulding dies
- Digitised correction and approval process
Production methods
- Injection moulding
- Extrusion
- Extrusion blow moulding
- Thermoforming
- Pressing
- Welding
Sectors and products
- Mechanical engineering
- Automotive
Methodological skills:
Agile culture
- Scrum
- Design Thinking
- Kanban
Digitisation
- Products and tools e. g. structured light
- Point cloud technology
- Reverse engineering
- CAD / CAE
Sustainability
- Life Cycle Assessment LCA
Our work is currently focusing on:
- “Thermally conductive plastics for use in aggressive media” ZIM research project
- Compounding for electrically conductive/magnetisable thermoplastic compounds
- Optimised approval process for moulded parts and tools by means of Point Cloud technology
- Plastic-compatible design and dimensioning of products
- Dynamic strength and fatigue strength of fibre-reinforced thermoplastics
- Sustainability in the university’s Life Cycle Analysis Competence Centre
- Agile project management by means of scrum and design thinking
- Variothermal tempering of injection moulding dies (thermoplastics and thermosetting plastics)
- Design and calculation of machine settings for the injection moulding process
- Processing of cross-linking materials in the injection moulding process
Further fields of activity are:
- Process optimisation, automation and process control of the processing methods: injection moulding, extrusion, extrusion blow moulding, thermoforming and pressing of thermosetting plastics
- Simulation of injection moulding and extrusion processes
- Damage analyses
- Identification and testing of plastics
- Welding of plastics