Institute of Lightweight Engineering

Lightweight construction is one of the most important technologies for securing Germany's position as an industrial location and overcoming current challenges such as climate change, electromobility and the escalating consumption of resources. This is expressed particularly clearly in the National Industrial Strategy 2030 and the lightweight construction strategy of the BMWi, which see lightweight construction as a "game changer" in this context. Thus, lightweight construction has long since ceased to be just an issue in aerospace and aviation, but plays a central role for almost all branches of industry and sectors.

At the Institute of Lightweight Engineering, we want to contribute to making structures as efficient and lightweight as possible for a wide variety of applications - taking into account all requirements (e.g. safety, costs, life cycle assessment, etc.). In this context, lightweight design always means using the right material (lightweight material design) in the right place, in particular omitting material where it is not needed (lightweight form design) or integrating functions that go beyond the purely structural aspect (lightweight functional design).

In order to accomplish these tasks, we at the Institute of Lightweight Design deal in teaching and research mainly with tasks in the areas of
    - the theory of lightweight construction,
    - fiber composites and the lightweight structures produced with them,
    - structural dynamics and
    - the experimental verification of lightweight structures (strength, durability, stiffness, crash)