Profile

In recent decades, all sectors of industry have experienced reorientations, upheavals or new beginnings. These processes have been caused by far-reaching technical innovations, social changes or external influences such as the energy crisis of 1974. Computer technology and information technology have fundamentally changed working conditions for everyone and working methods for many.

During this exciting time, metallurgy changed from a throughput-oriented industry to a multifaceted, quality-driven industry. The technical innovations of fluidized bed technology, flash smelting, oxygen metallurgy, continuous casting and melt reduction are characterized by an enormous increase in energy flow density. Solvent extraction and secondary metallurgy are examples of processes with extremely effective reaction selectivity. Reaction selectivity and transport mechanisms are also the basis for the production of semiconductors and high-purity metallic materials. The formation of microstructures and phases as well as the distribution of alloying and accompanying elements (segregations) determine the quality of cast products. Their controlled management is of fundamental importance for the foundry as a primary molding technology. In materials technology, heat treatment and forming have entered into a close symbiosis for the benefit of a greatly improved property profile, e.g. of ferritic and austenitic steels. Today, material forming processes are geared towards maximum production precision and the targeted adjustment of material-specific properties.

The technical development was accompanied by advances in scientific metallurgy: quantitative thermodynamics of reactions and mixed phases, heterogeneous equilibria and alloy constitution, reaction mechanisms and microkinetics, the inclusion of fluid mechanics in metallurgical process technology, the theory and reality of solidification processes, the understanding of forming processes on the basis of modern plasticity theory. Today, research in the field of metallurgy and forming technology focuses on the modeling and simulation of metallurgical processes, the recycling of metals and alloys and the development of functional materials for the highest stresses.

The Institute of Metallurgy was founded in October 1999. This was created from the merger of three units: the Institute of General Metallurgy, the Institute of Ferrous Metallurgy and Foundry Science and the Institute of Materials Forming.