The Fraunhofer LBF looks back on 75 years of experience in the field of structural durability and nowadays expanded with the expertise in adaptronics, plastics and system reliability. The Fraunhofer LBF develops, evaluates and realizes customized solutions for safety relevant products with a team of more than 450 employees together with the associated Chair of System Reliability and Machine Acoustics SzM and Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry of the TU Darmstadt. In doing so, the full added value chain is considered, from the idea to the product, from the material to the system and over the full life-cycle. For the customized solutions, the LBF provides versatile test facilities on more than 17.000 m2 which are complemented by the Virtual Test Lab for numerical simulations and testing. Since 1 July 2012, the German Institute for Polymers (DKI) became a division of Fraunhofer LBF. Thus, the competences of the Fraunhofer LBF have been extended by synthesis, processing, analysis and testing of functional and engineering plastics. The Fraunhofer LBF is currently structured into the four divisions Structural Durability, Smart Structures, Plastics and System Reliability. The Fraunhofer LBF is participating in alliances and networks inside and outside the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and performs research together with its partners on behalf of the industry, the trade associations, federal ministries, German Research Society and the European Union. The Fraunhofer LBF is e.g. member of the European Automotive Research Partners Association EARPA, the European Road Transport Research Advisory Council ERTRAC, the European Green Vehicle Initiative Association EGVIA and the European Technology Platform on Smart System Integration EPoSS. The Fraunhofer LBF is accredited as test facility according to DIN EN ISO-IEC 17025 and uses a certified quality management system according to DIN EN ISO 9001:2000.
