Thermo-Fluids and Combustion Engineering
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Peter Stephan

Panta rhei – Everthing flows. Whether in gas turbines, internal combustion engines, power plants, heat exchangers, pumps, or around wind turbines or airplanes: Everything flows. And thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, combustion and heat and mass transport determine the quality and energy efficiency of these products. The cluster collects together the key competences in these fundamental research areas and allows them to interact across classical disciplinary borders for the collaborative development of processes and products.

New Materials
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Wolfram Jaegermann

From elementary processes to technological solutions. New phenomena in natural sciences as fundament of innovative technologies or understanding of fundamental mechanism in empirically developed materials and devices: The future key technologies as e. g. energy technology, information and communication technology, traffic engineering, environmental engineering, need specifically designed and advanced materials. The cluster shall expand the excellent position of materials science and engineering in Darmstadt by setting clear foci, it shall provide the material’s basis for innovations in the technology research areas on-site, and thus shall contribute to solutions of up to now unsolved social and economic challenges.

Matter and Radiation Science
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Norbert Pietralla

… what keeps the world together in its innermost. Matter and radiation are the basic forms of energy. For research with most intense particle radiation of heavy ions and antimatter the international “Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research” (FAIR) is established at Darmstadt. Researchers of the TU Darmstadt make considerable contributions to the scientific development of the planned research programme. This cluster concentrates the corresponding research activities at the TU Darmstadt in the fields of particle accelerator technology, physics, material science, and radiation biology. Common interdisciplinary research projects offer students of the TU Darmstadt a jump-start on this fundamental research.

Integrated Product- and Productiontechnology
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Eberhard Abele

The cluster Integrated Product- and Productiontechnology (IPP) will develop new methods and solutions for a sustainable product development and production system design along the value added chain. Here, we aim for a strong cross-linking of material sciences, product development, production with business administration and logistics. The idea of sustainability is expressed by the more and more important question for recycling of scarce resources. The scientific aim will be the installation of a process and method competence over the comprehensive integrated product and production technology.

Future Internet
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Ralf Steinmetz

The Internet of the future will emerge as an intelligent, global and dense network for fast and reliable communications. It will provide the basis for completely new service offerings for private and commercial users. In order for this Internet of the future to become an engine for innovation, its technologies and applications have to be secure, powerful and highly efficient.

Numerous cooperating research chairs and institutes focused on “Future Internet Security”, “Future Internet (3D-) Documents (Visual Computing)”, “Future Internet Communications” and "Internet Economy“ are addressing these challenges.

Computational Engineering
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Michael Schäfer

Computational Engineering (CE) is a modern and multidisciplinary science
for computer based modeling, simulation, analysis, and optimization of complex engineering applications and natural phenomena. The Research focus CE bundles all existing skills in this field, spread across the different departments of TU Darmstadt, in order to coordinate common activities and to initiate larger research projects. In this context, one of the key areas is the interdisciplinary development and analysis of efficient numerical methods. Additionally, the Research focus CE serves as a central platform for internal and external communication.

Urban Research
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Martina Löw

In order to manage and to understand cities, skills and knowledge or a wide spectre of disciplines have to be mobilized. Fields such as water provision, energy consumption, quality of life, security and buildingculture are obviously closely interrelated. The urban research cluster faces up to this challenge to research cities and urban culture in its variety by engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue.

Adaptronic
Speaker: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Hanselka

Adaptronics is a highly interdisciplinary research field describing adaptive technical structural systems. Such systems autonomously adapt to their respective operational environment ensuring a defined functionality with minimal energy consumption and minimal costs of material. Adaptronics integrates additional functionality by combining conventional structures with intelligent material systems, which extend the classic function of load-bearing and shape-defining structures to sensing and actuating capabilities. The research center ADAPTRONIK combines all competences in this field distributed across departments of the TU Darmstadt. The aim is to harmonize and advance the performed fundamental and applied research as well as strengthening the scientific and technical education of our students. An important cornerstone is of the research center ADAPTRONIK is the LOEWE-Center AdRIA (Adaptronics -- Research, Innovation, Application) in which the Fraunhofer LBF, the TU Darmstadt and the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt are jointly developing adaptronic products with a high degree of technological maturity.