After being honored with the Joseph von Fraunhofer Prize 2017, a research team from Aachen has now also been awarded the prestigious Berthold Leibinger Innovation Prize. The award-winning process EHLA stands for extreme high-speed laser cladding. The technology allows protective metal coatings to be applied quickly, economically and in an environmentally friendly manner at extremely high speeds. EHLA is also an example of successful, partnership-based cooperation and the solution of application-oriented problems as well as the working methods of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
As early as 2010, Gerhard Maria Backes from the Chair of Digital Additive Production DAP at RWTH Aachen University was faced with the question of how to accelerate the laser cladding process. Traditionally, a melt pool is created on the surface using a laser beam and a metal powder is melted there. This is an established technology, but comparatively slow for large surfaces. What if you could melt the powder in the air and then apply the liquid metal?
However, the basic principles for implementing this idea had not yet been researched. This is where Dr. Andres Gasser
from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT came into play, who created the framework conditions, applied for research funding from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and supported Thomas Schopphoven.
and recruited Thomas Schopphoven. He was able to devote himself entirely to the problem in the Fraunhofer's internal funding program "Mittelstandsorientierte Eigenforschung" (MEF). Schopphoven investigated the basic principles in interdisciplinary teams, developed the system technology together with partners from industry and brought the process to industrial application in the years that followed.
