The ground-breaking study project
Students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering develop technology for the future, always with people in mind. Often award-winning. We present outstanding examples.
Space technology and printed wood
In an interdisciplinary effort, pioneering manufacturing processes were linked with novel materials in an application-oriented manner. The resulting fairing part of a research rocket uses biological composite materials that are processed in a 3D printing process to create a resource-efficient structure.
Launch vehicles are technically complex, highly loaded and as light as possible. The challenge for Andrei Klekovkin was to find a design that could produce hull parts with reproducible quality at low cost. At the same time, components were to be saved and sustainable materials used.
For the tip cone cladding, a mixture of thermoplastic and wood particles (WPC: Wood-Plastic-Composite) is melted and selectively deposited (FDM process: Fused Deposition Modeling). The material is made from renewable raw materials, has advantageous properties in terms of processability, density, vibration damping and heat dissipation, and above all is biodegradable: destruction is to be expected at the end of the flight. A net structure is provided for reinforcement. A ring of ribs provides additional stiffening: these are built from a lightweight filler structure and serve as the force transmission of the parachute's ejection system. At the same time, they hold a packed parachute in the longitudinal axis of the missile.
The work was carried out at the Chair of Wood Technology and Fiber Materials Engineering, in cooperation with the Chair of Space Systems as part of DLR's STERN program.
