Leightweight Design Made in Brandenburg

The Minister and Head of the State Chancellery of Brandenburg Kathrin Schneider visited Altrad Plettac Production GmbH in Großräschen on August 14. Plettac is Europe's largest developer and manufacturer of flexible scaffolding systems. The company's products are currently being used to scaffold France's landmarks in Paris, such as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral, for renovation and reconstruction measures.

The chair of Polymer-based Lightweight Design (PbL) has been an important research and development partner for the company since 2015. For example, the PbL team provides support in weight management, the optimization of subsystems and the design of new types of lightweight scaffolding. This has given Plettac an enormous competitive advantage over the past years and secured the Großräschen site.

Mrs. Schneider informed herself on site not only about the innovative company, but also about the long-term knowledge and technology transfer with BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg. Prof. Holger Seidlitz, Head of the chair of Polymer-based Lightweight Design (PbL) presented technology trends in general and current research topics in the field of lightweight construction at the Faculty 3 Mechanical Engineering, Electrical and Energy Systems in particular to the Minister.

He also presented a current research project, which - among other things driven by the lack of skilled workers and the demographic ageing in the scaffolding industry - deals with the development of scaffolding planks in ultra-light construction as well as a technology for their production. The rapid implementation of the research results in practice and the international networking impressed the head of the State Chancellery, not least against the background of the upcoming structural change in the Lusatia region.

The major initiatives launched specifically for this purpose were also discussed, including the SpreeTecNext technology cluster - as a tailor-made interface between science and research - the BTU activities within the framework of the Federal Government's National Hydrogen Strategy and the various projects with regional SME partners within the framework of the Regional Investment Concept (RIK) Lusatia of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. In this context, the Minister praised the cooperation and interdisciplinary collaboration with other BTU chairs. In particular, the approach of directly integrating the latest research results in teaching in close cooperation with industry met with great approval. This will make a significant contribution to the sustainable safeguarding of innovations, from which the companies in the region as well as the graduates - as highly qualified specialists of tomorrow - will benefit in particular.

Faculty 3 is also facing these challenges with its current restructuring, which includes, among other things, the bundling of cross-material lightweight design competences in a joint Institute for Lightweight Design and Value Added Management (ILW).