Powder Metallurgy

Designing materials with tailored properties, and thereby the appropriate manufacturing technologies, is an important issue in almost every field of engineering applications for technical, economic and ecological reasons.

Making use of powder metallurgical techniques opens up numerous opportunities to produce materials with enhanced properties and combinations of different features. Powder metallurgical methods to manufacture nanocrystalline and amorphous materials or materials with sensoric or actuator functionalities are especially relevant.

Development is focussed on lightweight materials, materials for tribological applications and thermal management (e.g. composite materials for passive cooling, thermoelectric materials for active cooling) and high temperature materials to be used in transportation industry, electronics, energy technology and mechanical engineering.

The department’s range of activities is complemented by powder metallurgical production of sputter targets for coating techniques, tribological tests, and material testing (e.g. thermal analysis, mechanical tests at room temperature and at temperatures up to 1500 °C).