TU Darmstadt

The Technical University of Darmstadt (TUDa) is an autonomous research university located in Darmstadt, Germany. It is a technical university focusing on engineering, natural sciences, and social sciences. TUDa was founded in 1869. The university has a strong emphasis on research and offers a wide range of over 100 programs in various disciplines. The TUDa employs 319 professors in 13 departments and is an intellectual home to approx. 25.000 students. The TUDa bundles its cutting-edge research into three fields: Energy and Environment, Information and Intelligence, Matter and Materials. The problem-centered interdisciplinarity between engineering, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences characterizes the research and studies conducted at TUDa. An intensive and productive exchange with society, business and politics is a key aspect of the university’s success.

At the research group Product Life Cycle Management scientists are researching the representation and evaluation of the product life cycle in virtual and digital space for the purpose of resource-conserving and sustainable development. The most relevant area of expertise cultivated at the PLCM in the context of this proposal is Virtual Product Development. In this focus area, the PLCM presents findings from research on digital process chains. In addition, methods are developed to support users in the digital product development process. In this research segment, an integration of Life Cycle Analysis into Computer Aided Design software to support the designer in making sustainable design decisions was developed as a tangible example.

The PLCM consists of one professor, one retired professor, three postdocs, 16 doctoral candidates in full-time positions and three IT staff members. The educational courses range from Computer Aided Design to Virtual Product Development and reach around 600 students per semester. To enable the participation of all students, the PLCM runs an extensive IT infrastructure at the Gerhard Pahl Center encompassing student workstations and High-Performance Computing hardware.

The PLCM offers education along the entire process of product development. This encompasses Computer Aided Design, Computer Aided Engineering and Computer Aided Manufacturing, but also Product Data Management. The course on Computer Aided Design was first held in 1995 and has since then been part of the mandatory curriculum for each engineer earning a degree at TU Darmstadt.In Advanced Development or Advanced Research Projects, groups of students are tasked with solving a problem defined by industry partners. One such project is the Global Collaborative Engineering project, which partners students from all over the world for collaboration. Therefore, the PLCM has experience in managing and developing engineering course work in globally distributed teams and is well suited to participate in this project.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Benjamin Schleich has been Professor and Head of the PLCM since 2022. He received his doctorate from the Faculty of Engineering at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2017 and habilitated there in 2023. Prof. Schleich is also an elected member of the Advisory Board of the Design Society and a Research Affiliate of the International Academy of Production Engineering (CIRP). His research interests include digital twins, data-driven sustainability, data mining and machine learning in product development. An excerpt from his recent research relevant to this project includes articles on data-driven approaches to geometric variance management using Generative Adversarial Networks and a method to design clinch joints with Reinforcement Learning.