Lecture by Peter Barlog on the subject of lightweight construction at Fakuma

On October 14, from 15:00-17:00, the Netstal company, Swiss manufacturer of injection molding machines, held a lecture event on the topic of “Constructive Lightweight Design” at FAKUMA. Peter Barlog, Managing Director of BARLOG Plastics GmbH, gave a presentation entitled “Lightweight Design = Material + Design + Process” as part of this event.

Innovative lightweight solutions require more than the use of a “light” high-performance plastic instead of “heavy” metal. First, in lightweight design, it is particularly important to know the right material and the strengths and weaknesses of fiber-reinforced plastics. In addition, the structure of the component must be designed in such a way that stress peaks can be avoided and every superfluous gram of material can be saved. In particular, the directional dependence of the mechanical properties, the reduced strength in weld lines and the excess stress due to notch effects are critical influencing variables.

The BARLOG Group’s application development experts use bionics methods, among others, to optimize components. Here, man can learn a lot from nature. If you apply the principles of the growth laws from nature to the optimization of component designs, you get structures that are significantly less stressed and therefore more robust and durable with the same material input – or conversely, require significantly less material input with the same load capacity.

The presentation by Peter Barlog used a practical example from the BARLOG think tank to explain the geometry optimization of a component with the aim of achieving a significantly higher load capacity for the same weight.

If you missed the event, we would be pleased to hear from you on the subject of lightweight construction and would be happy to discuss with you the possibilities of also making your products significantly lighter with the same strength or stronger and more durable with the same weight.

Best regards

Your team of the BARLOG Group