About us
Since its foundation in 2005, the IWK Institute for Materials Technology and Plastics Processing at the HSR University of Applied Sciences Rapperswil has developed into a well-known competence centre for the plastics processing industry. As a competent partner for companies in the regional and supra-regional area, IWK offers services covering all aspects of the material groups of plastics, fibre composites and material composites.
The IWK has established itself as a competence centre for the most important plastics processing methods in Switzerland. The IWK has proven expertise in materials science, plastics processing and component development. IWK's laboratory equipment covers injection moulding, polyurethane processing, fiber composite processing, compounding, extrusion and material development. In addition, various smaller equipment such as materials testing machines, microscopy, mechanical and rheological testing equipment, climatic chambers etc. are available, which can be used for material characterization, component testing and quality control.
In the field of additive manufacturing IWK has know-how in the design (3D modelling), data preparation (slicer software), material development (FDM filaments), manufacturing (FDM) and characterisation (material testing) of prototype components. That's why the IWK has its own filament extrusion line as well as various FDM printers and the Arburg freeformer.