Front Page Story - Construction-Machine-Design
by Eugen Schmitz

Different as Art Design has to defer to people, has to cast functions in mould. Design helps to facilitate the access of the user on technique, to save energy and to save the environment – this applies also to construction machines. […] This shows plainly the project „Energie- und Ressourceneffiziente Mobile Arbeitsmaschinen“ (ERMA) of the center of commercial vehicle technology (ZNT) of the RPTU. There are working twelve research facilities of the RPTU on the field of commercial inserted vehicles closely together. From the responsibilities of the ZNT the research group product engineering has been founded to process the joint project.

Likewise four chairs of the department Mechanical and Process Engineering – Design Engineering (KIMA), Machine Elements, Gears and Transmissions (MEGT), Mechatronics in Mechanical Engineering and Vehicle Technology (MEC) as well as Virtual Product Engineering (VPE) – work at this together. On the example of a mobile excavator the company Volvo Construction Equipment (Location: Konz, Rhineland-Palatinate) is developing new concepts and methods to increase energy- and resource-efficiency. The project is supported by the foundation “Rheinland-Pfalz für Innovation”.