Currently funded project

Digitisation of material development along the value chains (DiMaWert)

In order to achieve the climate protection targets already agreed, measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must be introduced in the short term. The most effective lever for this is increasing energy efficiency in energy-intensive industries. Heating processes require about two thirds of the total energy of the manufacturing industry and are almost 90% powered by fossil fuels, so that in principle there is high potential for savings. However, the development of new energy-efficient processes from the first pilot plants to the implementation on an industrial scale currently takes far too much time.

 

Development goals in the DIMaWert project
© Fraunhofer-Centre HTL
Development goals in the DIMaWert project

This is where the DiMaWert project comes in: In DiMaWert, a methodology is to be established which will radically reduce the development times for new types of thermal processes, i.e. by at least half. To this end, the entire development chain from initial deployment planning to series production is to be equipped with powerful, networked computer-based and experimental methods. The methodology represents an extension of the so-called Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) already established in the USA. ICME is to be transferred to the development of thermal processes and supplemented with a view to series production according to Industry 4.0 standards. In addition to thermal processes, DiMaWert also aims at material and component development, which is also to be accelerated considerably with ICME and AI methods.