Sharkskin, bioceramics, enormous stadium roof structures, or ultra lightweight car bodies – about 70 percent of all technical innovations are based on newly developed materials. Engineers are always on the look-out for the perfect material or tailored material combinations for certain areas of use, for example automobiles, airplanes, or smartphones.
Material design creates the fundamental requirements: here both pure materials and innovative combinations are tested, in which different materials are combined with each other creating a tailored product with characteristics from both original materials. This is how, for example, new metals combined with wood fibers are produced, which are extremely lightweight and don't conduct heat.
Another research area optimizes the manufacuture of materials: glasses, ceramics, and different metals are developed to fit precisely in order to produce intelligent surfaces or biocompatible materials for lightweight construction.
A third focus of materials engineering is on innovative processing techniques for new materials, for example to improve vehicle concepts or the manufacture of tailored machines for casting and recasting. When optimizing manufacture, process, and recycling techniques consideration is not only given to efficiency but also to environmental compatability: emissions are reduced, waste products reused, and energy regenerated.
Functionality is not the only important factor in the development of materials – the focus of research is also on the sustainable use of resources.
If you think of dirty halls and basic handwork when thinking of materials engineering, you're wrong. High-tech research is primarily conducted: materials engineers experiment in highly specialized labs. Top modern comupter simulation programs make it possible for them to conduct research that mirrors reality, is cost efficient, and conserves resources. Not only metals like steel and aluminum are important. In fields such as medical technology, mineral materials are in great demand.
Materials engineers educated at RWTH possess expertise ranging from metallic to mineral materials to the necessary process skills. In order to fully appreciate the breadth of the discipline, the Bachelor's program does not offer an opportunity to specialize. Students in the Master's program can choose from a plethora of specializations.
