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Vortrag und Abstract
Some 165 global experts and specialists from industry and academic institutes met at the 8th Metallization & Interconnection Workshop (MIW2019) that took place from 13 to 14 May 2019 in Konstanz, Germany. Participants from 19 countries debated results of 28 oral and 11 poster presentations.
All presentations are available on www.metallizationworkshop.info as pdf documents. As in previous editions, lots of room was available for discussions and networking during the two-days program which included panel and market-place discussions as well as social events (reception, workshop dinner).
These proceedings contain: a summary of the oral and poster presentations, the results of the survey conducted during the workshop, and peer-reviewed papers based on workshop contributions.
This paper summarizes the trends in metallization and interconnection technology in the eyes of the participants of the 8th Metallization and Interconnection Workshop. Participants were asked in a questionnaire to share their view on the future development of metallization technology, the kind of metal used for front side metallization and the future development of interconnection technology. The continuous improvement of the screen-printing technology is reflected in the high expected percentage share decreasing from 88% in three years to still 70% in ten years. The dominating front side metal in the view of the participants will be silver with an expected percentage share of nearly 70% in 2029. Regarding interconnection technologies, the experts of the workshop expect new technologies to gain significant technology shares faster. Whereas in three years soldering on busbars is expected to dominate with a percentage share of 71% it will drop in ten years to 35% in the eyes of the participants. Multiwire and shingling technologies are seen to have the highest potential with expected percentage shares of 33% (multiwire) and 16% (shingling) in ten years.
Summary of the 8th Workshop on Metallization and Interconnection for Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
(2019)
This article gives a summary of the 8th Metallization and Interconnection workshop and attempts to place each contribution in the appropriate context. The field of metallization and interconnection continues to progress at a very fast pace. Several printing techniques can now achieve linewidths below 20 μm. Screen printing is more than ever the dominating metallization technology in the industry, with finger widths of 45 μm in routine mass production and values below 20 μm in the lab. Plating technology is also being improved, particularly through the development of lower cost patterning techniques. Interconnection technology is changing fast, with introduction in mass production of multiwire and shingled cells technologies. New models and characterization techniques are being introduced to study and understand in detail these new interconnection technologies.
We present an innovative decision support system (DSS) for distribution system operators (DSO) based on an artificial neural network (ANN). A trained ANN has the ability to recognize problem patterns and to propose solutions that can be implemented directly in real time grid management. The principle functionality of this ANN based optimizer has been demonstrated by means of a simple virtual electrical grid. For this grid, the trained ANN predicted the solution minimizing the total line power dissipation in 98 percent of the cases considered. In 99 percent of the cases, a valid solution in compliance with the specified operating conditions was found. First ANN tests on a more realistic grid, calibrated with household load measurements, revealed a prediction rate between 88 and 90 percent depending on the optimization criteria. This approach promises a faster, more cost-efficient and potentially secure method to support distribution system operators in grid management.
We present an alternative approach to grid management in low voltage grids by the use of artificial intelligence. The developed decision support system is based on an artificial neural network (ANN). Due to the fast reaction time of our system, real time grid management will be possible. Remote controllable switches and tap changers in transformer stations are used to actively manage the grid infrastructure. The algorithm can support the distribution system operators to keep the grid in a safe state at any time. Its functionality is demonstrated by a case study using a virtual test grid. The ANN achieves a prediction rate of around 90% for the different grid management strategies. By considering the four most likely solutions proposed by the ANN, the prediction rate increases to 98.8%, with a 0.1 second increase in the running time of the model.
Das hier vorgestellte Netzoptimierungstool kann dem Verteilnetzbetreiber bei einem Störfall im Netz in Echtzeit eine Lösung zur Steuerung seiner Betriebsmittel vorschlagen. Dadurch kann das bestehende Netz optimal genutzt werden und ein kostenintensiver Netzausbau im Mittel- und Niederspannungsnetz verringert oder sogar verhindert werden. Als Grundlage für den Netzoptimierer dient ein künstliches neuronales Netz (KNN). Zum Training des KNN wurden Störfälle generiert, die auf reellen Erzeugungs- und Lastprofilen aus dem CoSSMic-Projekt basieren [1]. Für jeden Störfall wurde aus allen möglichen und sinnvollen Netzkonfigurationen eine optimierte Netztopologie anhand von Lastflussberechnungen ermittelt. Durch die Variation der Stufenschalter der Transformatoren und der Stellungen aller installierten Schalter im Netz wurde berechnet, wie der Stromfluss gelenkt werden muss, damit keines der Betriebsmittel die zulässigen Belastungsgrenzen mehr überschreitet. Für ein virtuelles Testnetz konnte mit einem trainierten KNN zu 90 Prozent die optimale Lösung des jeweiligen Störfalls erkannt werden. Durch die Anwendung der N-Best Methode konnte die Vorhersagewahrscheinlichkeit auf annähernd 99 Prozent erhöht werden.
Die Studienanfänger in den technischen Studiengängen der Hochschulen für angewandte Wissenschaften haben nicht nur in Mathematik sondern auch in Physik sehr unterschiedliche Vorkenntnisse. Obwohl diese Fächer für das grundlegende Verständnis technischer Vorgänge von großer Bedeutung sind, kann die Ausbildung in diesen Bereichen angesichts der begrenzten dafür im Verlauf des Studiums zur Verfügung stehenden Zeitfenster nicht bei Null anfangen. Für Mathematik wurde daher von der Arbeitsgruppe cosh ein Mindestanforderungskatalog zusammengestellt und 2014 veröffentlicht. Er beschreibt Kenntnisse und Fertigkeiten, die Studienanfänger zur erfolgreichen Aufnahme eines WiMINT-Studiums (Wirtschaft, Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft, Technik) an einer Hochschule benötigen. Inzwischen hat sich nun eine Arbeitsgruppe von Physikerinnen und Physikern an Hochschulen in Baden-Württemberg gebildet, deren Ziel es ist, einen analogen Mindestanforderungskatalog für den Bereich Physik zu erstellen. Hier wird der aktuell erreichte Stand der Arbeiten vorgestellt.
A physics lab-setup has been developed for engineering students in their first year at university. The so-called LabTeamCoaching helps to improve general lab skills, such as preparing an experiment, writing a documentation, using graphs and drawing conclusions. By using a flipped classroom approach, students get better involved than in our former physics labs when we applied classical methods. This approach will be described and an overview of our 10 years of experience using this method will be given.
One important skill for engineers is the ability of optimizing their experiments. On their job they will often spend a lot more time designing and improving an experimental setup compared to running the actual experiment itself. Is it possible to teach this complex task in physics labs? A method for reaching this goal is proposed an example is given and discussed.
Fast and reliable acquisition of truth data for document analysis using cyclic suggest algorithms
(2019)
In document analysis the availability of ground truth data plays a crucial role for the success of a project. This is even more true at the rise of new deep learning methods which heavily rely on the availability of training data. But even for traditional, hand crafted algorithms that are not trained on data, reliable test data is important for the improvement and evaluation of the methods. Because ground truth acquisition is expensive and time consuming, semi-automatic methods are introduced which make use of suggestions coming from document analysis systems. The interaction between the human operator and the automatic analysis algorithms is the key to speed up the process while improving the quality of the data. The final confirmation of data may always be done by the human operator. This paper demonstrates a use case for acquisition of truth data in a mail processing system. It shows why a new, extended view on truth data is necessary in development and engineering of such systems. An overview over the tool and the data handling is given, the advantages in the workflow are shown, and consequences for the construction of analysis algorithms are discussed. It can be shown that the interplay between suggest algorithms and human operator leads to very fast truth data capturing. The surprising finding is the fact that if multiple suggest algorithms circularly depend on data, they are especially effective in terms of speed and accuracy.
Das WITg wird digitaler
(2019)
Pascal Laube presents machine learning approaches for three key problems of reverse engineering of defective structured surfaces: parametrization of curves and surfaces, geometric primitive classification and inpainting of high-resolution textures. The proposed methods aim to improve the reconstruction quality while further automating the process. The contributions demonstrate that machine learning can be a viable part of the CAD reverse engineering pipeline.
Deep neural networks have become a veritable alternative to classic speaker recognition and clustering methods in recent years. However, while the speech signal clearly is a time series, and despite the body of literature on the benefits of prosodic (suprasegmental) features, identifying voices has usually not been approached with sequence learning methods. Only recently has a recurrent neural network (RNN) been successfully applied to this task, while the use of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) (that are not able to capture arbitrary time dependencies, unlike RNNs) still prevails. In this paper, we show the effectiveness of RNNs for speaker recognition by improving state of the art speaker clustering performance and robustness on the classic TIMIT benchmark. We provide arguments why RNNs are superior by experimentally showing a “sweet spot” of the segment length for successfully capturing prosodic information that has been theoretically predicted in previous work.
We propose a novel end-to-end neural network architecture that, once trained, directly outputs a probabilistic clustering of a batch of input examples in one pass. It estimates a distribution over the number of clusters k, and for each 1≤k≤kmax, a distribution over the individual cluster assignment for each data point. The network is trained in advance in a supervised fashion on separate data to learn grouping by any perceptual similarity criterion based on pairwise labels (same/different group). It can then be applied to different data containing different groups. We demonstrate promising performance on high-dimensional data like images (COIL-100) and speech (TIMIT). We call this “learning to cluster” and show its conceptual difference to deep metric learning, semi-supervise clustering and other related approaches while having the advantage of performing learnable clustering fully end-to-end.
Ceramics are often used in high-temperature applications. Therefore, thermomechanical and heat resistance of ceramic and refractory materials are important. The material behaviour is described by thermal stress resistance. Established material tests to determine thermal shock behaviour are complex. The potential of application-related material testing in combination with simulations is described below.
A new thermal shock application-oriented testing method for ceramic components and refractories
(2019)
Ceramics and refractories are often used in high-temperature applications like industrial furnaces. Therefore, thermomechanical and heat resistance of ceramic and refractory materials are important. The material behaviour is described by thermal stress resistance. Established material tests to determine thermal shock behaviour are complex and do not yield key figures. The potential of application-related material testing in combination with simulations with transfer from ceramics to refractories is described below. The combination of model-based simulation with applied material testing offers numerous advantages. On the one hand, the design of the test setup is supported by the simulation, which results in a goal and application-oriented test setup. On the other hand, the iterative approach allows the model verification with the help of the applied material testing. The simulation shows that the transfer from ceramics to refractory material is possible and results according to literature. The design reliability of the components is thereby improved, since initially different loads can be simulated in the model in combination with a variety of materials and geometries, and thereby substitute complex and expensive preliminary tests. As a result, verified models offer a great savings potential in terms of time to market, development expenses and use of raw materials. Very important is, that the method is suitable for technical ceramics and refractory materials.
Der Einsatz von Keramiken erfolgt oft bei hohen Temperaturen oder großen Temperaturgradienten. Deshalb ist die thermo-mechanische Beständigkeit von keramischen und feuerfesten Werkstoffen wichtig für die Materialauswahl und das Bauteildesign. Das Werkstoffverhalten wird durch die Thermoschock- bzw. Temperaturwechselbeständigkeit beschrieben. Etablierte Werkstoffprüfungen zu ihrer Ermittlung sind komplex und aufwendig. Das Potenzial von anwendungsnaher Werkstoffprüfung in Kombination mit modellbildender Simulation wird beschrieben.
Leichtbauwerkstoffe bewegen sich im Spannungsfeld neuer Werkstoffkombinationen, Herstellungs- und Fügetechnologien sowie von Lebensdauer und Nachhaltigkeit. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit sollte daher hybriden CFK-Metallverbunden gelten. Gefördert von der Internationalen Bodensee Hochschule IBH untersucht etwa das Werkstoffprüflabor der Hochschule Konstanz (HTWG) in einem internationalen Forschungsprojekt die Festigkeit von Sandwich-Verbunden aus Aluminium und CFK.
Zusammenfassende Darstellung der Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie über Friedens- und Postkonfliktarbeit durch kirchliche Akteure in Indonesien ( Maluku) und auf den Philippinen (Mindanao). Auf Basis der Untersuchung ziehen die Autoren Schlussfolgerungen über die praktische Bedeutung kirchlicher Friedensprojekte nach Konflikten
Drawing on a rich body of multimethod field research, this book examines the ways in which Indonesian and Philippine religious actors have fostered conflict resolution and under what conditions these efforts have been met with success or limited success.
The book addresses two central questions: In what ways, and to what extent, have post-conflict peacebuilding activities of Christian churches contributed to conflict transformation in Mindanao (Philippines) and Maluku (Indonesia)? And to what extent have these church-based efforts been affected by specific economic, political, or social contexts? Based on extensive fieldwork, the study operates with a nested, multi-dimensional, and multi-layered methodological concept which combines qualitative and quantitative methods. Major findings are that church-based peace activities do matter, that they have higher approval rates than state projects, and that they have fostered interreligious understanding.
Through innovative analysis, this book fills a lacuna in the study of ethno-religious conflicts. Informed by the novel Comparative Area Studies (CAS) approach, this book is strictly comparative, includes in-case and cross-case comparisons, and bridges disciplinary research with Area Studies. It will be of interest to academics in the fields of conflict and peacebuilding studies, interreligious dialogue, Southeast Asian Studies, and Asian Politics.
Flatness-based feed-forward control of solenoid actuators is considered. For precise motion planning and accurate steering of conventional solenoids, eddy currents cannot be neglected. The system of ordinary differential equations including eddy currents, that describes the nonlinear dynamics of such actuators, is not differentially flat. Thus, a distributed parameter approach based on a diffusion equation is considered, that enables the parametrization of the eddy current by the armature position and its time derivatives. In order to design the feedforward control, the distributed parameter model of the eddy current subsystem is combined with a typical nonlinear lumped parameter model for the electrical and mechanical subsystems of the solenoid. The control design and its application are illustrated by numerical and practical results for an industrial solenoid actuator.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of synovial joints, often resulting in irreversible structural damage. The activity of the disease is evaluated by clinical examinations, laboratory tests, and patient self-assessment. The long-term course of the disease is assessed with radiographs of hands and feet. The evaluation of the X-ray images performed by trained medical staff requires several minutes per patient. We demonstrate that deep convolutional neural networks can be leveraged for a fully automated, fast, and reproducible scoring of X-ray images of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. A comparison of the predictions of different human experts and our deep learning system shows that there is no significant difference in the performance of human experts and our deep learning model.
CO2 compensation measures, in particular the compensation of flights, are becoming more and more popular. Carbon offsetting is defined as measures financed by donations that save greenhouse gases previously emitted elsewhere through climate protection projects.
CO2 abatement costs are often low in developing countries. This is why most offset projects are implemented there. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the holiday resort and the project country are in any way related to each other.
By linking carbon offset projects with the destination country, the tourist is able to get an impression of the co-financed project. In case such projects are realized in cooperation with the hotel, the hotel operator obtains a new tourist attraction and can demonstrate its efforts to climate protection in a PR-effective way.
Die Hitzewellen der Sommer 2003 und 2015 zeigten wie kritisch langanhaltende Trockenheit nicht nur für die Natur, sondern auch für wassernutzende Unternehmen werden kann. Infolge des Klimawandels wird es entlang der Gewässer Baden-Württembergs immer wieder zu verschärften Niedrigwassersituationen kommen, was unter Umständen zu Wassernutzungskonflikten mit anderen Nutzern führt. Innerhalb dieses KLIMOPASS Projektes liegt der Fokus auf der Identifikation von vorhandenen und im Zuge des Klimawandels potenziell auftretenden lnteressens- und Nutzungskonflikten um die Ressource Wasser. Der Forschungsschwerpunkt bezieht sich hierbei auf zwei beispielhafte Fluss-Einzugsgebiete in Baden-Württemberg (die Murg und der Kocher) sowie aller beteiligten Akteure bzw. Wasserge- und -verbraucher (Energienutzung, Landwirtschaft, kommunale Entwässerung, Tourismus, Ökologie, etc.).
Anhand des Kochers und der Murg wurden mit Hilfe von Umfragen, Experteninterviews und Workshops Nutzungskonflikte identifiziert sowie Handlungsoptionen für eine Niedrigwasservorsorge und ein Niedrigwassermanagement erstellt. Dabei galt es ökonomische, gesellschaftliche und ökologische Belange möglichst adäquat zu berücksichtigen und sämtliche relevanten Akteure (Stakeholder) in einen partizipativen Prozess zu integrieren. Den Erhebungen zufolge treten Wassernutzungskonflikte nicht allgemein sektorenübergreifend auf, sondern sektorenspezifisch. Hierbei stehen die in Konflikte verwickelten Sektoren charakteristischerweise mit mehreren Stakeholder-Gruppen im Widerstreit, andere Akteursgruppen haben wiederum keinerlei Erfahrung mit Konflikten. Weiterhin ist auffällig, dass Niedrigwassersituationen an beiden untersuchten Flüssen lediglich einen Teil der Nutzungskonflikte ausmachen und verstärkt mit anthropogenen Einflüssen in Verbindung gebracht werden.
Dramapädagogik-Tage 2018
(2019)
Der Tagungsband zur 4. Konferenz zu Drama und Theater im Fremd- und Zweitsprachenunterricht versammelt Tagungsbeiträge aus den Bereichen Grundlagen, Forschung und Praxis. Die Beiträge reichen von Begriffsklärungen zur Dramapädagogik über Skizzen aktueller Forschungprojekte hin zu Praxisbeiträgen zu den Themen Process Drama und interkulturelles Lernen, Körpersprache und Fremdsprachenlernen, Fremdsprachenlernen mit Gedichten, reflektiver Praxis, Drama Grammatik und performativer Literatur- und Kulturdidaktik.
Viele touristische Aktivitäten sind mit einem erhöhten Energiebedarf (Strom, Wärme, Kraftstoffe) verbunden, sodass Tourismus nicht losgelöst von der Energiewirtschaft bzw. deren Klimawirksamkeit zu betrachten ist. Das Projekt befasst sich daher mit der Triade Tourismus, Klimawandel und erneuerbare Energienutzung.
Die Veränderungen des Klimas stellen den Tourismus vor neue Herausforderungen. Um diesen Herausforderungen, im Sinne eines nachhaltigen Tourismus gerecht zu werden, kann der Tourismus dem Klimawandel mit Anpassungs- und/oder Vermeidungsstrategien begegnen (vgl. ELSASSER ET AL. 2000). Im Rahmen dieses Projektes werden sowohl mögliche Anpassungs- als auch Vermeidungsstrategien thematisiert. Ein besonderer Fokus wird dabei zum einen auf die Nutzung von erneuerbaren Energien (EE) gelegt. Zum anderen werden die Entwicklungen des Tourismus und die Anpassungen an die Änderungen des Klimas vornehmlich in Bezug auf den Wintertourismus betrachtet. Räumlich konzentriert sich das Projekt auf das Mittelgebirge Schwarzwald.
When a country grants preferential tariffs to another, either reciprocally in a free trade agreement (FTA) or unilaterally, rules of origin (RoOs) are defined to determine whether a product is eligible for preferential treatment. RoOs exist to avoid that exports from third countries enter through the member with the lowest tariff (trade deflection). However, RoOs distort exporters' sourcing decisions and burden them with red tape. Using a global data set, we show that, for 86% of all bilateral product-level comparisons within FTAs, trade deflection is not profitable because external tariffs are rather similar and transportation costs are non-negligible; in the case of unilateral trade preferences extended by rich countries to poor ones that ratio is a striking 98%. The pervasive and unconditional use of RoOs is, therefore, hard to rationalize.
Die Bodenseeregion gilt als populäre Freizeit- und Tourismusdestination, mit der ein vielfältiger Naturraum, ein angenehmes Klima sowie eine fruchtbare Landwirtschaft verbunden werden. Der Kulturtourismus ist dabei – je nach Bodenseedestination in unterschiedlich starker Ausprägung – nicht nur ein wichtiger Baustein für die Erweiterung der touristischen Angebotspalette, sondern auch ein wesentlicher Faktor für die Lebensqualität am Bodensee.
Für die Tourismuswirtschaft und insbesondere den Kulturtourismus ist die Inanspruchnahme von Knowhow der Kreativwirtschaft z. B. in Form von Produkten und Dienstleistungen des Presse-, Rundfunk-, Software-, und Werbemarkts unverzichtbar. Die Kreativwirtschaft ist mit Teilmärkten wie der Musikwirtschaft, den darstellenden Künsten oder dem Kunstmarkt ein wichtiger Inhaltslieferant für kulturtouristische Angebote.
The aim of this paper is to portray the risks of climate change for low mountain range tourism and to develop sustainable business models as adaption strategy. A mixed-method-approach is applied combining secondary analysis, a quantitative survey, and qualitative in-depth-interviews in a transdisciplinary setting. Results show, that until now, climate change impacts on the snow situation in the Black Forest – at least above 1,000 m – have been mild and compensated by artificial snowmaking, and up to now have not had measurable effects on tourism demand. In general, the Black Forest appears to be an attractive destination for more reasons than just snow. The climate issue seems to be regarded as a rather incidental occurrence with little importance to current business decisions. However, the authors present adaption strategies as alternatives for snow tourism, e. g. the implementation of hiking hostels, since climate change will make winter tourism in the Black Forest impossible in the long run.
This paper presents a framework to assess the cultural sustainability of Aboriginal tourism in British Columbia, which meets must take into account the protection of human rights, good self-governance, identity, control of land, the tourism product’s authenticity, and a market-ready tourism product. These criteria are specified by two indicators each. The cultural sustainability framework was generated by triangulating qualitative research methods like experts’ interviews, secondary research, and participant and non-participant observations. This paper is thus conceptual in nature and inductive in its approach. It partly leverages a collaborative approach, as it includes interviewees in an iterative research loop. Furthermore, the paper shows why cultural sustainability is a determinant of the success of Aboriginal tourism.
Border issues continue to be of interest in tourism literature, most significantly that which focusses on cross-border shopping (e.g., currency values, taxation,
security). Borders as destinations are recognized in this area but the notion of shopping as a destination is perhaps less acknowledged. Following a review of the relevant literature, including the presentation of a table summarizing key areas of cross-border tourism research around the world, this paper presents a unique example of a border region with two-way traffic for cross-border shopping tourism: the border between Germany and Switzerland.
The particular case is where two cities meet at the border: Konstanz, Germany and Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. An intercept survey and key informant interviews were conducted in both communities in the spring of 2015. The results indicate high levels of traffic for various products and services. And while residents are generally satisfied with cross-border shopping in their communities, there are emerging issues related to volume and, in particular, too many in Konstanz and not enough in Kreuzlingen.
The paper concludes with a discussion that includes the development of a model cross-border shopping tourism that recognizes the multiple layers in space and destination.
The paper concludes with a proposal to further investigate the particular issues related to the volume on both sides of borders where cross-border shopping is the destination.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine visitor management in the German-Swiss border area of the Lake Constance region. Taking a customer perspective, it determines the requirements for an application with the ability to optimize personal mobility.
Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative study and a survey of focus groups were conducted to identify movement patterns of different types of visitors and their requirements concerning the development of a visitor management application.
Findings – Visitors want an application that provides real-time forecasts of issues such as traffic, parking and queues and, at the same time, enables them to create a personal activity schedule based on this information.
Research limitations/implications – Not every subsample reached a sufficient number of cases to yield representative results.
Practical implications – The results may lead to an optimization and management separation of mobility flows in the research area and be helpful to municipal planners, destination marketing organizations and visitors.
Originality/value – The German border cities of Konstanz, Radolfzell and Singen in the Lake Constance region need improved visitor management, mainly because of a high level of shopping tourism by Swiss visitors to Germany. In the Summer months, Lake Constance is also a popular destination for leisure tourists, which causes overtourism. For the first time, the results of this research presented here offer possible solutions, in particular by showing how a mobile application for visitors could defuse the situation.
The project aims for the development of a new material system from high tensile stainless steel wires as net material with environmentally compatible antifouling properties for off-shore fish farm cages. Therefore, current net materials from textiles (polyamide) shall be partially replaced by high strength stainless steel in order to have a more environmentally compatible system which meets the more severe mechanical loads (waves, storms, predators (sharks)). With a new antifouling strategy current issues like reduced ecological damage (e.g. due to copper disposal), lower maintenance costs (e.g. cleaning) and reduced durability shall be resolved.
Thermal shape memory alloys show extraordinary material properties and can be used as actuators, dampers and sensors. Since their discovery in the middle of the last century they have been investigated and further developed. The majority of the industrial applications with the highest material sales can still be found in the medical industry, where they are used due to their superelastic and thermal shape memory effect, e.g. as stents or as guidewires and tools in the minimal invasive surgery. Particularly in recent years, more and more applications have been developed for other industrial fields, e.g. for the household goods, civil engineering and automotive sector. In this context it is worth mentioning that for the latter sector, million seller series applications have found their way into some European automobile manufacturers. The German VDI guideline for shape memory alloys introduced in 2017 will give the material a further boost in application. Last but not least the new production technologies of additive manufacturing with metal laser sintering plants open up additional applications for these multifunctional materials. This paper gives an overview of the extraordinary material properties of shape memory components, shows examples of different applications and discusses European trends against the background of the most recent standard and new production technologies.
Thermochemical surface hardening is used to overcome the weak mechanical performance of austenitic and duplex stainless steels. Both low-temperature carburizing and nitrocarburizing can improve the hardness, wear, galling, and cavitation resistance, while maintaining their good corrosion resistance. Therefore, it is crucial to not form chromium-rich precipitates during hardening as these can deteriorate the passivity of the alloy. The hardening parameters, the chemical composition of the steel, and the manufacturing route of a component determine whether precipitates are formed. This article gives an overview of suitable alloys for low-temperature surface hardening and the performance under corrosive loading.
Fachvortrag auf dem Swiss Tribology Symposium, 12.11.2019, Hightechzentrum Aargau, Brugg, Schweiz