Manfred Hirschvogel Prize for the best dissertation

Dr. Ann-Kathrin Brinkmann was awarded this year’s Manfred Hirschvogel Prize for the best dissertation at the Mechanical Engineering Day. She wrote her doctoral thesis entitled “Prozessplanung und Fertigungsstrategien zur Herstellung von Bauteilen mittels inkrementeller Fertigung“ (Process planning and manufacturing strategies for the production of components using incremental manufacturing) at the Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology at TU Braunschweig. The prize is endowed with 5,000 euros and is awarded at the TU9 Universities for the best dissertation in Mechanical Engineering.

Ann-Kathrin Brinkmann and her supervisor Prof. Klaus Dröder are delighted to receive the award for the best dissertation of the year in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Photo credit: Fotodesign/TU Braunschweig

The prizewinner investigated the manufacturing principle and future flexible manufacturing cells for robot-based incremental manufacturing. In future production systems, robot-based incremental manufacturing may be the key to economically producing complex-shaped functional components made of different materials, regardless of batch size. Until now, such functional components could only be produced using “shape-based” manufacturing techniques, such as injection moulding or sheet metal forming, which require investment-intensive tooling and additional process steps that make production economical only for very large batch sizes. However, as product variance increases and batch sizes per component variant shrink, mould-based processes are reaching their limits.

The production concept designed, prototyped and researched by Ann-Kathrin Brinkmann offers the possibility of combining a wide range of manufacturing processes and materials in an integrated production concept. The “IML – Incremental Manufacturing Lab” production system was implemented by Dr. Brinkmann at the Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology, and the advantages of this production concept have been demonstrated in a number of research projects. Her work, supervised by Prof. Klaus Dröder, has laid the foundations for the future industrial application of robot-based incremental manufacturing.

Dr. Ann-Kathrin Brinkmann obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering at TU Braunschweig and spent part of her studies at Tongji University Shanghai and the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon.