Vision
Taking into account digitization aspects with foresight is one of the foundations for future-oriented cutting-edge research. At Leibniz-IWT, awareness of this foundation is established along the entire process chain. From the routine handling of data and automation processes in everyday research work, to a long-term planned digitization strategy, to co-designing international standardization procedures - the institute is actively involved in digital development in the sense of good scientific practice.
In an increasingly digital world, the handling of data must be fundamentally rethought in order to be able to work together internationally in a networked and sustainable manner. For example, data should be accessible and reproducible in order to be optimally usable for research and industry ("FAIR").
A central research data management system in the institute lays the foundation for a handling of research data oriented to this. This is combined with the integration of practice-oriented application guidelines and training concepts, also with a view to IT security in general. We make our current Data Management Guidelines available via GitHub: https://github.com/Leibniz-IWT/DataManagementGuidelines
Projects
The relevance and challenges of these topics open up the potential for numerous exciting international networks for knowledge exchange. We are always open for suggestions and an exchange of experiences.
Our involvement already flows into the NFDI consortium MatWerk (IUC11) and InnoMatSafety (project completed), as well as the Patents4Science project (information infrastructure for the exploitation of patent knowledge in the context of research and development). The Leibniz-IWT also coordinates the Datasteward network of the University Bremen Research Alliance (UBRA) and initiated the RDA Materials Data Interest Group in cooperation with BAM and NIST.
We are also a proud partner of the BMBF initiative "MaterialDigital", which launched its eponymous platform in 2019. The vision: a decentralized data space as a unity of data and data processing. Particularly in the case of material sciences, it is becoming clear that, based solely on the diversity of materials and the processes associated with their production and use, as well as the complexity of their life cycles, a common basis with uniform descriptions is indispensable in order to constructively address the increasing volumes of data. This is where the MaterialDigital platform comes in.
References
Furthermore, Leibniz-IWT also conducts research on specific issues related to digitization along the process chain for the production of metallic functional and structural components. This includes, among other things:
- the computer-aided evaluation of pores in additively manufactured components
(https://doi.org/10.3390/app11136086)
- the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate critical loads in material and layer testing
(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfcoat.2020.125365)
- as well as the digital mapping of manufacturing processes using Digital Shadows and Digital Twins
(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2020.11.026, https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15207090,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.precisioneng.2022.06.010).