Highlights from research and development

In 2017, an industrial consortium and Fraunhofer IWS were the first in Europe to succeed in implementing a Laser-Magnetic- Domain-Refinement system (LMDR) on industrial scale. This system is used in the Czech Republic by the largest steel producer in the world, the first system user outside Asia. The technology created at Fraunhofer IWS generates a refinement on grain-oriented electric or magnetic sheets used in transformers. The scientists contributed to the solution by providing the software and control components developed at the institute based on the ESL2-100 module. In drives, sheets are used whose magnetic structure is not grain-oriented, to meet the requirements of continuously rotating components and thus changing magnetic fields, whereas transformers demand grain orientation. Sheets with a clear orientation in fields that are not moving minimize eddy current losses. The LMDR system generates a local line-oriented heat treatment in the passage of a strip before it is assembled and cut to the correct length. Sheets prepared this way are assembled in transformers worldwide. The Fraunhofer IWS solution provides maximal flexibility. The technological parameters remain constant under changing conditions, such as strip speed.