Fraunhofer Institute

With the flagship project “ORCHESTER,” we are establishing the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft as a leader in the interaction between industry, associations, politics and research in the supply of functionally reliable materials for the energy transition. As an interdisciplinary consortium, we combine experimental, simulation-based, process, sensor and digital technologies into a digital ecosystem that provides integrable solutions for evaluating functional safety and enables recommendations for action based on a digital knowledge base. We see “ORCHESTER” as a physical platform for building long-term and trusting relationships with companies in the value chains for stainless steels, aluminum materials and magnetic materials.

In detail, “ORCHESTER” opens up new design options for industry in the search for alternative materials, maintaining the production chain in the event of shortages and crises and reducing the proportion of critical elements. To this end, technical challenges in dealing with fluctuating material compositions in recycling routes, fast and efficient alloy variation and the integration of material flow models and computer-aided methods for predicting multifunctional material properties (e.g. mechanical, corrosive, producible and sustainable) must be solved. The participating Fraunhofer Institutes contribute methods such as high-throughput screening, sensorized manufacturing and production processes as well as process simulations and knowledge graphs to link material and process data with models and expert knowledge.

Using high-impact demonstrators related to the realization of the energy transition, we create a lighthouse effect and show that a paradigm shift in material specification increases the selection of usable materials at least fivefold, increases the proportion of recycling in process routes by at least 50 percent and reduces the proportion of rare earths from primary production by at least 25 percent. A comparison of the "ORCHESTER" technology with industrial practice will prove that the targets have been achieved. In all demonstrators, an increase in resilience of more than 30 percent has been proven by a stress test.