The shorter the product development time of a product, often the greater its success. With regard to microcomponents, however, a direct, thus rapid and cost-efficient manufacturing process does not exist, which enables to fabricate microstructures (< approx. 200 µm) of metallic materials in a rapid prototyping process.
A collaborative project supported by the European Union aims at finding a solution to this problem, which allows the rapid and inexpensive manufacturing of components and prototypes with geometries in the micrometer range using laser microsintering.

In the project entitled Manudirect (from direct manufacturing), the following shall be developed:

• New powders for micro and nanoscale material systems
• Optimized focused powder mass flows
• A laser system for a one-step microsintering process
• High manufacturing productivity combined with spatial resolutions of up to 50 µm in all directions
• Methodologies for the integrated draft of components

Manudirect shall provide a platform to the industry for the manufacturing of metallic and ceramic materials, which was optimized with regard to high accuracy and high efficiency.

The results from this project shall lead to new positive developments in many fields of application, especially in manufacturing technology. Considerable economic effects are expected particularly in the fields of microengineering and biomedicine.

Aside from the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH), further partners in this project come from Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Spain, Rumania, Poland, Cyprus, and Belgium.

The Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) carries out research and development in the field of laser technology and is supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour and Transport of the State of Lower Saxony (Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Arbeit und Verkehr).