Icy temperatures are a challenge for people and technology in everyday life. If precipitation or humid air is added to this, technical systems can freeze or ice up, which impairs their functionality and causes hazards.
Icing hazards exist, for example, in aircraft, ships, rail vehicles, cars, sensors, solar panels, tank systems and wind turbines. GRAVOmer, the competence network for functional surfaces, based in Leipzig, has a network of more than 100 companies and research institutes, including K. Walter Plating and Processes, the Leipnitz Institute for Surface Modification and numerous Fraunhofer Institutes. The network works on an interdisciplinary basis on the development and industrial implementation of innovative surface functions and technologies that can be used to solve the problem of icing, among other things. GRAVOmer is now also working on the establishment of a competence center in order to further advance the industry-compatible transfer of functional surface functions into practice. Here, partners as well as interested companies and research institutions will be supported in testing and industrial scaling of their project results and application requests from customers will be realized with the experts from the network.
