Munich, 13 December 2024 – The 14th Annual Congress of the WGP took place from 2 to 4 December 2024 under the motto ‘Production in Transformation – Transformation in Production’. At Chemnitz University of Technology and the Fraunhofer IWU in Dresden, 75 young talents presented their research results on the topics of efficiency in production, circularity, digitalisation/AI and automation. ‘This year’s congress showed that the topic of sustainability has been taken up by researchers in various forms and is being driven forward with a great deal of energy,’ said WGP President Prof Michael Zäh.
In three parallel sessions, the scientists presented a broad spectrum of WGP research work, from technological innovations in process chains for machining and forming processes to innovative management approaches such as factory planning or production organisation. Many of the presentations also dealt with interdisciplinary cross-sectional topics such as energy efficiency, robotics, control engineering, automation, materials technology, human-centred production and additive manufacturing.
Making additive manufacturing more economical
On the latter highly topical subject, Helena Wexel from wbk Karlsruhe won the Best Presentation Award, presented by the organisers for the first time, with her presentation ‘Influence of particle size distribution in High-Speed Directed Energy Deposition’. The WGP scientist focussed on powder-based high-speed energy deposition with a laser beam (HS DED-LB), a new variant of directed energy deposition (DED-LB). By shifting the powder focus over the substrate, the added powder is melted before deposition, enabling processing speeds of up to 200 m/min. Modern HS-DED-LB systems have 5-axis capabilities so that the material can also be applied to irregular geometries. For this reason, the process is particularly suitable for post-processing and offers great potential for the industry. However, increasing material and energy efficiency throughout the entire process chain is essential for improving process efficiency. By making coarser particle size distributions possible for HS DED-LB, economic efficiency can be increased and reconditioning losses reduced. To this end, Wexel demonstrated the interaction between powder-gas flow, process parameters and the resulting weld seam.
Efficiency is also an important topic this year
Once again this year, many of the presentations focussed on approaches that use data-driven methods such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve efficiency in production. Daniel Schneider from iwb Munich, for example, showed in his presentation ‘Data-Driven Demonstrator for Sustainable Production Through Remanufacturing’ how the transition to a circular economy can be facilitated. To this end, he presented a data-driven demonstrator that conveys the benefits of remanufacturing in the context of the industrial circular economy. Using a scalable simulation model, it evaluates sustainability indicators in the economic, environmental and social areas and provides a comprehensive tool for decision-makers in manufacturing. The integration of dynamic visualisations through a Tableau dashboard makes it possible to interactively explore the impacts and benefits of circular production processes and compare them with traditional linear models. Future research, says Schneider, should focus on expanding the demonstrator’s applicability and improving real-time data integration.
News on process and machine monitoring
However, the use of measurement results to improve simulations and control algorithms was also frequently discussed, for example by Chris Schöberlein from IWP Chemnitz in the presentation ‘Drive-based identification of transfer function between external load and motor torque on electromechanical axes’. He presented a new method for utilising the potentials of internal drive signals from electromechanical axes for higher-level process and machine monitoring. In addition to fault diagnosis of the mechanical and electrical subsystems, these signals can be used to estimate time-variant external loads. An essential prerequisite for this is the determination of the transfer function between the load torque and the servomotor. Almost all methods available to date have in common that the required models are either determined via external measurement and excitation sources or are limited in their accuracy. Schöberlein presented an alternative approach in which the required system excitation is provided by the servomotor itself and only available signals from the drive system are used. His experimental results on a single-axis test bench prove that the method works.
The lively discussions among the 100 or so participants at the conference showed that transformations can only succeed by implementing both – detailed technical improvements in production technologies and optimised production organisation.
The conference proceedings, which will be published next year, will summarise the contributions, all of which were peer-reviewed in two stages, in a thematically sorted format.
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Featured image: At the Chemnitz Industrial Museum, participants at the WGP Congress were able to experience a journey through 220 years of Saxon industrial history. Source: TU Chemnitz / Katja Klöden