Motivation
Large-scale industrial solutions with enormous investment costs or individual production with high energy consumption and long throughput times can be used to cure fiber-reinforced plastics. For quantities of 100 pieces, the disadvantages of both approaches outweigh the advantages, resulting in high unit costs. A manufacturing process with medium investment costs but low energy consumption and short throughput times would therefore be particularly valuable for the industry. Tools from Large Format Additive Manufacturing (LFAM) meet the requirements in terms of investment costs and service life. However, the plastics used in these tools result in long throughput times and high energy costs due to their high heat capacity and low thermal conductivity. Therefore, the MIKWERK research project aims to combine the advantages of LFAM tools with those of self-heating tools and print them in a single additive manufacturing step. Microwave absorption has been chosen as the heating mechanism for this project. For this purpose, the tool is manufactured in a shell design using a microwave-reflective material. An absorber layer is printed in the immediate vicinity of the component. Magnetrons emit the required microwaves and are installed after the additive manufacturing process.

Acknowledgement
The chair would like to thank the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy for funding the project (MIKWERK), under the "ZIM:Produktionsforschung" program. (Förderkennzeichen: KK5135826HD3)