For economic and ecological reasons, each development of components aims at attaining maximum reliability and utility with a minimum of material. This requirement can only be met by a knowledge of the way external loads are transferred onto the specific component over the entire system and its resulting inner strain, combined with reliable data on material endurance in the specific design. 

The Fraunhofer Material and Components Group has a major focus in systems and components under extreme strain in traffic and power engineering, medical technology, microelectronics and microstructure technology.

It has a broad range of testing equipment under mechanical, thermal, electrical, and chemical strains. They cover the static field (such as corrosion tests) all the way to the highly dynamic field (collision analyses) applying also the methods of numerical simulation. It devises non-destructive testing methods for quality assurance in production and service, integrating them in such areas as the automotive and component-supply industries, rail technology and pipeline systems. These are complex technical testing systems that ensure safe operation of components. The Group has a nearterm future goal of integrating these tests into production processes to boost the quality and economic viability of production. 

The more multifunctional or even »intelligent« materials (i.e., functioning as sensors and actuators) become, the greater the complexity of analyzing the reliability of systems and components. However, this taps new and important design potential for such things as lightweight engineering in traffic engineering and mechanical engineering. This is the reason why the Group pools its talent with other partners from production and information technology to carry on exhaustive research efforts to develop extensive knowledge in terms of designing and analyzing adaptive systems.