Business area Transport
An aerospace institute conducting research in the field of ground-based transport? - Yes!
This is because many issues and technologies are transferable: In transport, too, the tension between society's mobility requirements and the impact of mobility on the environment poses the challenge of harmonising safeguarding mobility, protecting the environment and the desire for increased safety.
The Transport business unit brings the Institute's expertise acquired in aerospace to the roads and railways. To this end, it pools all research activities focussed on ground-based transport on land and waterways. These research projects pursue the vision of emission-free mobility, with intelligent lightweight system construction playing a key role. This is the case in the Next Generation Car project, which receives basic funding. This project aims to develop sustainable vehicle structures. Among other things, lightweight, structurally integrated, load-bearing conductor tracks and their resource-saving automated production contribute to this.
The Next Generation Train - Backbone of Intermodal Transport project, which is also an internal DLR project, addresses the demand for alternative fuels and drive concepts for rail transport. The aim is to develop long-lasting and cost-efficient hydrogen storage systems for a hybrid multiple unit train. Here, the coupling of structurally integrated monitoring systems with efficient calculation methods enables better material utilisation and needs-based maintenance.
Structural monitoring as an enabler for mass reduction is also a focus of the BMWi-funded project Significant mass reduction through structurally load-bearing fibre composite-intensive carriage body structures of rail vehicles with integrated damage diagnosis system. The project uses the front end of a regional train to show that integrated condition monitoring is possible in real operation.
In the interdisciplinary business field of transport, the various research areas of the institute, from efficient calculation methods and cost-effective manufacturing processes to the testing of integrated systems, are interlinked in order to shape the environmentally friendly and safe mobility of tomorrow.