27. Nationales SAMPE Symposium

2023 SAMPE Germany Symposium brings back Academics and Industry experts together in Bavaria under the main theme „Lightweighting and Sustainability“ 

On March 21st/22nd, the 27th national Sampe Germany Symposium took place in Munich and after several postponements, giving the opportunity to finally enjoy personal face-to-face interactions and discussions, and demonstrating the importance of such regular meetings.  

SAMPE Germany is a rather small, close-knit community that emphasises this personal interaction since its inception. In contrast to the many large, industry driven interest groups, not corporations are its members, but the people working in industry and academia.   

An originality of the annual German Symposium is to take place at a different location around the country each year, enabling some of the leading German universities to host the event and to contribute to the overall program. After two failed attempts from Technische Universität München (TUM) to host a live event, third time was the charm.  

Following the opening presentations from Prof. Frank Henning , President of SAMPE Germany,  and Prof. Klaus Drechsler, Head of the TUM Carbon Composites Chair, the two-day event schedule was balanced between research projects reports from current students and content presented by experts from Airbus Helicopters, BMW Group, MAHLE, SGL Composites, W8SVR . Roughly eighty participants listened closely, as speakers from academia and industry presented their ideas on how to increase environmental sustainability in many different fields related to composite materials. From hydrogen storage on automotive and aerospace, from additive manufacturing to pultrusion, from thermoplastic tapes to biobased reactive resins, the scope was broad but always captivating. Excursions to the laboratories of TUMs Chair of Carbon Composites (LCC) in Garching and Taufkirchen rounded out the program.  

Introducing students to lightweight materials research and processing is one of SAMPEs main goals. This is done through competitions as well as travel sponsoring. Several students took advantage of this and enjoyed free access to the symposium as well as travel budget.  

One of the many highlights was the Award Ceremony for the SAMPE innovation prices during the evening event. These prices are awarded yearly to one master- and one doctoral-thesis.  

We congratulate Clemens Zimmerling and Martin Giesbert Sola for their outstanding performance and wish them the best of luck at the European Student Seminar, which will be held in conjunction with SAMPE Europe in October, in Madrid. The next SAMPE Germany Symposium will be held in Karlsruhe in April 2024. We hope to see you there!