Steel-aluminum mixed joining is of great interest for automotive lightweight design, since they allow load adapted and lightweight components. The Laser Zentrum Hannover (LZH) developed in the project "LaserLeichter" a laser beam welding process for joining three-dimensional structures in steel-aluminum hybrid construction. Within the project MATFEM simulates mixed compounds by means of detailed FEA analysis. Experiments and virtual experiments based on those meso-models then serve for the derivation of macro models, which should allow simulating the stiffness and the failure behavior of similar compounds in good approximation in a crash simulation under industrial conditions. The project is coordinated by Robert Bosch GmbH and is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the program "Photonic methods and tools for resource-efficient lightweight design”.

More Information: matfem.de/research