Elena López is the head of Fraunhofer IWS’s additive manufacturing division, which develops laser and printing technologies for procedures involved in the fabrication of individualised components and functional structures made of metals, semi-conductors and polymers.
López studied chemical engineering at the University of Valladolid and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, finishing her PhD thesis, on plasma-chemical etching of silicon solar wafers, at the Dresden University of Technology. She has focused her work on 3D printing and additive manufacturing technologies since 2014.
Fraunhofer IWS recently joined forces with researchers from Hamburg and Melbourne working on combining ultrasound with laser deposition welding to 3D-print more robust, more durable and cheaper components for aerospace, toolmaking and other industries. The technology, known as UltraGrain, ‘can improve properties such as fatigue resistance, strength, resilience and ductility and significantly reduce the susceptibility to cracking of additively manufactured components’, said López.
She is also the general manager of the Agent-3D, an additive manufacturing consortium of research institutions and industrial members including Audi, Airbus and Bombardier.
López can be found online at linkedin.com/in/elena-lópez-35a63718/.
Organisation: Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology (IWS)
Role: Head of additive manufacturing division
Based in: Dresden, Germany
Education: PhD MEng