SUPERVISOR: Ulrich MÜLLER

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Alexander STADLMANN

Abstract
New trends in automotive engineering show an increasing involvement of multi-material structures. Wood and wood-based materials show a substantial potential to reduce weight, raw material, and energy costs in future for automotive manufacturing. However, multi-material mix and the introduction of wood in this branch demands new additive and subtractive production technologies and production concepts. For the identification of appropriate technologies, the systematic of DIN 8580 should be applied, because this scheme covers all technologies and therefore opens the chance to find proper techniques. Additional, new additive production technologies should be considered. Beside the mechanical properties of wood-based materials and material combinations also alteration of the material during the manufacturing processes have to be studied, because these data are demanded for simulation and computer aided engineering.

Initial state
The project WoodC.A.R. aims at a knowledge based approach to implement wood into new fields as the mobility sector. A strong cooperation between BOKU and the “Virtual Vehicle Research Centre” and the Vehicle Safety Institute (TU-Graz) has been established to feed in results from research of manufacturing technologies into computer aided engineering and material simulation. The study of new manufacturing technologies is strongly supported by the company partners, i.e. IB-Steiner (injection molding and extrusion technologies), Collano (gluing technologies), EJOT (joining technologies) and Weitzer Parkett (milling and cutting technologies). In the field of plastic technology and the combination of plastic with wood materials the project will be supported by the facilities and expertise of the Institute of Natural Materials Technology (Dr. Mundigler).
The core topic of the project is to describe the mechanical properties of the different components of a multi-material structure. For material modelling of such structures it is necessary to know the properties of the different materials before, during and after processing. Computer aided engineering and simulation will help to reduce costs and development time by applying such structures in the future.

Goals
The dissertation is aiming to analyze existing and new additive and subtractive manufacturing technologies and to investigate if these technologies are adaptable on wood-based multi-material structures. The dissertation will deliver relevant data for simulation of the production processes. Advanced analysis of the structures, material properties, effects of the processes on materials, etc. will help to estimate applicability and the adaptation of the processes needed. Additionally, cost efficiency and process stability can be assessed. Specific aims of the dissertation are as follows:

  • Which material combination can be realized and established with existing manufacturing processes?
  • Which existing manufacturing technologies for multi-material structures can be adapted on wood-based materials?
  • How are new manufacturing technologies affected and influenced by involving wood and wood-based components?