Technical processes with highly stressed tools and components require replacement investments and maintenance measures sooner or later. With its robustness and temperature resistance, high-performance ceramics are predestined for wear applications. Meanwhile, intelligent technologies overcome economic reservations and geometrical restrictions regarding the production of ceramic components. The industry benefits from significant lifetime multiplications and wear reductions.

Intricate complex structures for punching and forming tools, large-volume mill components or pump impellers, superhard materials and wear-resistant fiber-reinforced composites are realized at Fraunhofer IKTS cost-effectively, resource-efficiently and thus sustainably.

Electrically conductive ceramics for new geometries

So far, highly stressed applications, such as microstructured mold inserts for injection molding of highly filled polymers, were not efficiently realized with ceramics by classical mechanical production routes, such as grinding. These obstacles, which occur in the preparation of such impact-resistant and crack-sensitive materials, can be overcome by electric discharge machining. Conductive ceramics, developed at Fraunhofer IKTS, now allow for the realization of demanding component geometries with outstanding features by this materials-saving procedure.

Cost-effectiveness despite diamond insert

Due to its high level of hardness and chemical resistance, diamond is used in cutting tools or rock drills. So far, the high production costs of high-pressure production processes limit the potential applications of this material. Scientists at IKTS now succeeded in manufacturing complexly shaped diamond ceramic composites without pressure. The material substitution of expensive diamond by ceramics results in significant saving of raw materials and costs at comparable properties. Thus, these robust and extremely wear-resistant composites can be manufactured with a maximum of flexibility in terms of component size and allow previously excluded applications.

Large-volume silicon carbide components manufactured cost-efficiently via casting

Wear-resistant, large-volume components with differences in wall thickness and demanding undercuts, such as in pump impellers, can be cast with ceramics in a single step prospectively resulting in reduced material usage, time and therefore costs. So far, such large components were only producible from much more sensitive metals or plastics. The casting method developed at Fraunhofer IKTS in Dresden significantly increases lifetimes of machines, for example in chemical and machine engineering, and improves  their productivity.

Wear-resistant ceramic reinforcement for tools in processing technology

In processing technology, a long lifetime is required, which cannot be achieved with conventional iron and steel casting tools. Scientists at IKTS developed a significantly more robust composite material made of ceramics and metal for these extremely stressed components. It is based on highly porous ceramic inserts that are placed solely at the critical wear points in the mold and are infiltrated with metal – resulting in a tool blank, whose metal cover provides for the necessary elasticity and the ceramic reinforcement for a reduction of wear. Hence, the lifetime is increased significantly.

These ceramic inserts are variable in shape and thus enable flexible tool geometries for different applications, such as grinding or milling plants. Since the tool is mostly made of metal, the final mold can be realized by conventional processing machines without expensive diamond tools. The product development will be presented at the Hannover Messe 2016 for the first time.

Ceramic surface finishing

Fiber composites, such as carbon or glass fiber-reinforced plastics, are excellently suited for construction materials. They are light and are characterized by high strength. Because of their limitedly wear-resistant surface, many applications remain impossible so far. Plasma-sprayed ceramic coatings refine components with regard to their resistance to abrasion, erosion or cavitation.