To path indicator Subpages of “Newsdetail“ To navigation To quick access To footer with other services
To content
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Studierende sitzt am Arbeitsplatz und schaut auf den Laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund

DFG Extends Funding for the FUNDAM³ENT Research Unit

© IUL
The German Research Foundation (DFG) fund the FUNDAM³ENT Research Unit (FOR 5380) for another four years. Approximately €3.9 million, including an allowance for indirect costs, is available for the second funding period. Around €500,000 will go to the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Components (IUL) at TU Dortmund University.

FUNDAM³ENT investigates how high-speed shearing cutting can produce cut edges with improved functional properties. In the long term, the process could enable components such as gears and chain links to be made from different types of steel sheet in a single step, with little or no subsequent finishing. During the first funding period, the research team showed that higher cutting speeds can improve the geometric accuracy and performance of cut edges. The team also studied the formation of adiabatic shear bands: narrow regions of intense deformation within the material. Its findings indicate that the material, cutting speed, stress state in the sheet, and clearance between the cutting tools all influence the properties of the cut edge.

Over the next four years, the Research Unit will investigate these relationships further and assess how the findings can be applied to industrial components. Its work will include additional steel grades, different sheet temperatures, and more complex geometries. A link for a leaf chain will serve as an industry-relevant demonstrator. In addition to TU Dortmund (IUL), the research group includes TU Chemnitz (WOT, LWW), TU Munich (UTG), as well as the Fraunhofer Institutes IWU and IWM/KIT. The institutes work closely across their subprojects (SP). Their collaboration connects expertise in manufacturing processes, materials science, and modelling. By examining the cutting process and the resulting material properties together, the teams can use findings from one area to guide work in another. Regular exchange of results and research data supports this joint approach.