Fibers are one of the most important reinforcing materials for polymers. The combination of fibers and polymer resins increases the polymer materials' mechanical properties considerably. Owing to their relatively low weight, fiber-reinforced polymers are often used for construct lightweight components, especially those characteristically found in the automotive or aerospace industries.

The research area of "producing composite components" focuses on the continual production of fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composite components. We use so-called unidirectional (UD) fiber-reinforced tapes as the basis for these components. These tapes are used to custom reinforce the components in order to achieve the required mechanical properties of the component with a minimum use of fibers.

Research in "Plastics Recycling" focuses on the circular economy for plastics and polymers. While we only cover specific topics in the area of chemical recycling and dissolution, we focus on mechanical recycling as part of the entire process chain, conducting research on the pre-treatment of plastic waste, the conversion of plastic waste into recyclate granulate, the quality control of process steps and material states, and the post-treatment of recyclate granulate. In addition, our research includes the digitalization and digital transformation of all process steps and the linking of offline and inline data.

In the research area "Digitization" we are dealing with the challenges, possibilities, and requirements of digitization for plastics production/recycling. Here, the possibilities of acquiring data from machines and analyzing them for improving the production process as well as product quality are considered. However, these approaches must not be developed and applied without the people in production. Therefore an important focus is the integration of humans to support them in their tasks. In the research area "Digitization" we are dealing with the challenges, possibilities, and requirements of digitization for plastics production/recycling. Here, the possibilities of acquiring data from machines and analyzing them for improving the production process as well as product quality are considered. However, these approaches must not be developed and applied without the people in production. Therefore an important focus is the integration of humans to support them in their tasks.

In the Locomotion Lab we study motion analysis and personalized technologies. In the fields of health, medicine, sports, industry and entertainment, solutions are sought that are personalized, mobile, lightweight and can interact seamlessly with our movements. We are researching new product development methods, exoskeletons, mobile robotics applications (e.g. with drones), and new manufacturing processes that enable these applications.

The main activity of the smart system engineering lab (SSEL) is the adaptation and implementation of various modules of the methodology “Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME)”.

These modules involve both physical model based and data science based modeling and simulations tools for descriptive, predictive and perspective simulation models.