New director on the future of the FGK research institute

With application-oriented research in the field of functional ceramics to technical ceramics and the transfer of its findings, the Research Institute for Glass | Ceramics – FGK in Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany, supports especially SMEs in their competitiveness and initiates start-ups in innovative growth areas. With the challenge of globalization, there is a growing necessity to impIement innovations faster and more efficiently in processes and new applications.

New fields of expertise

Since August 2020, Dr.-Ing. Frank O.R. Fischer, the new managing director at the FGK, has taken on this challenge. “We shall further develop our existing experiences and bring them together in a new field of competence for Transfer & Application. With this, we shall present ready-for-use findings from the Accredited Testing Laboratory and Research & Development faster and in a more targeted way to the regional ceramics industry to strengthen its competitiveness. This will also enable us to record the industry’s needs more systematically and feed the information back to the FGK for research,” explains Fischer. The new Transfer & Application field of competence consists of the competence areas Transfer Management, Process Optimization and Digital Transformation.

Two new fields of competence, Modelling and Simulation as well as Design & Component Functionalization, are also to be established in the Research & Development division. To fully utilize the potential of additive manufacturing in ceramics, first, design and functionalization adapted to the possibilities of additive technology based on digital manufacturing on the computer as well as modelling and simulation of the process and component optimization are essential. “Only in this way can the production costs be lowered, and the maximum functionality of the products or components predicted and assured. Completely new possibilities also result for the design and functionalization of additive-manufactured ceramic components, and these must be included in new design guidelines,” says the new institute director. All this information should in future come together or implemented in ceramic materials at the Additive Technologies Competence Centre in Höhr-Grenzhausen.

Digital transformation

“With the digital transformation, the FGK can further develop in line with future needs as an application-oriented research institute in the Rhineland-Palatinate, which not only works to make its own processes more effective, but also serves as a pioneer and for the purpose of demonstration of the digital transformation in industrial research institutes and regional SMEs”, says Fischer.