Mechanical Engineering Informatics and Virtual Product Development

The design of methods, processes and IT procedures for virtual product development as well as the efficient management of information over the entire product life cycle is our field of competence. The main goals of our research activities are, on the one hand, the most complete possible model representation and description of complex technical systems with their properties and behavior in the computer and, on the other hand, the integration and optimization of IT procedures for domain-spanning and multidisciplinary product information management.

The breadth of our research area in Industrial Information Technology ranges from the use of semantic technologies at the data level to artificial intelligence methods for data analysis functions and aspects of software usability in the area of Human Machine Interface (HMI).

Our research area in Virtual Product Development ranges from classical design in various CAD systems over diverse CAE systems including own programming of calculation software up to topology optimization by means of CAD data feedback from results of FEM calculation.

The combined research areas result in the competence to accompany the product development process by means of existing virtual methods or to develop new methods if required.

The research area Mechanical Engineering Informatics and Virtual Product Development was led from 2006 to 2019 by Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing Detlef Gerhard, opens an external URL in a new window, who accepted an appointment to the chair of Digital Engineering at the Ruhr-University Bochum on 1.4.2019. Until a new professorship is filled, the research area will be headed by A.o. Univ.-Prof. Dr. techn. Manfred Grafinger.

Pressure Vessel and Plant Technology

Research and teaching in the field of pressure vessel and plant technology are supervised by Ao.Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. Franz Rauscher.