Distortion engineering - interim results after one decade research within the Collaborative Research Center

The result of distortion during manufacturing and its removal or correction totally amounts to similar economical losses in industry as known by wear or corrosion phenomena. Therefore over a long time high efforts have been taken to avoid or minimize distortion, starting with basic investigations at the beginning of the last century. The increasing importance led to intensified research, culminating in the late 90's with several investigations on steel grades and productions routes and their impact on dimensional changes. Focussing on separated aspects and influencing parameters before, the establishment of the Collaborative Research Center Distortion Engineering at Bremen University, funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), first time treated distortion as a system attribute and result of the entire process chain. After 11 years of project work in the CRC, which ends in 2011, a summary of achievements and outlook on further investigations is given.