Selective Laser Melting_@Philipp Kürnsteiner

Interdisciplinary Research Key Topics

We analyse materials down to their atomic and electronic scale to unravel the correlation between their microstructure and properties. This comprehension empowers us to engineer sustainable and smart materials capable of enduring extreme operational environments. Employing state-of-the-art microscopy methods and computer simulations, we push the boundaries of material science. Our four departments collaborate with each other as well as with global partners to tackle the following pivotal research areas.

Platforms with symbols from industry and research arranged in a circle

Sustainability of and through Materials

Shaping our future in terms of sustainable technologies, new materials and industrial processes is one of the most important topics of our generation and we are in need of scientific and engineering answers. How can we avoid the use of carbon as energy and reductant carrier? How can we make better and rare-earth free permanent magnets for electrical vehicles? How can we render alloys sustainable and improve recycling rates? Which are the novel materials that can withstand embrittlement caused by hydrogen? And what is the potential of new thermoelectric and solar cell absorber materials for green power generation? [more]

Artificial Intelligence and Digitalization

For millennia, materials design relied on random discoveries and empirical rules — later refined into predictive theories and simulations. Today, this classical approach is being transformed: automation, advanced characterization, and simulations generate vast amounts of data, which we turn into insight. By combining materials science expertise with advanced data analysis and artificial intelligence, we move beyond collecting knowledge and use it to accelerate progress. [more]

Advanced Materials

Advanced materials have been key enablers of technological progress over thousands of years, lending entire ages their name. The accelerated demand for both, load-bearing and functional materials in key sectors such as energy, sustainability, construction, health, communication, infrastructure, safety and transportation is resulting in predicted production growth rates of up to 200 per cent until 2050 for many material classes. This requires not only to better understand the fundamental relationships between synthesis, manufacturing, basic mechanisms, microstructure and properties but also to discover novel materials that meet both, advanced application challenges under harsh environments. [more]

Materials under harsh environments

Material decay under harsh environmental conditions is known through phenomena such as corrosion, stress-corrosion cracking and hydrogen embrittlement - by far the most severe phenomena limiting the longevity and integrity of metal products, destroying about 3.4 % of the global gross domestic product every year, a value translating to 2.5 trillion Euros.
Hence, any progress in corrosion resistance has large effects on the lifespan and safety of products and is thus also the most eminent single factor in improving the sustainability of industrialized civilizations.
Loss of material and system failure due to oxidation accounts for the vast majority of the economic impact of corrosion and is an essential factor in infrastructure costs worldwide. [more]

Two persons looking at screens showing images from a microscope

Microstructure and Properties

At the heart of materials science is the relationship between a material’s microstructure and its properties. Understanding and controlling this interplay is key to developing optimized, often multifunctional, materials. Properties like fracture toughness, strength, ductility, thermal and electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance, or magnetic behaviour can all be tuned by tailoring the material’s “architecture.” [more]

Two individuals looking into complex machinery, adjusting metallic components

Method Development

The development of novel types of materials and processes that take upscaling, safety and sustainability into account requires methodologically state-of-the-art and often long-term research projects. They regularly result into the development of innovative tools for experiments, characterization, processing, simulations and machine learning. [more]