Professor Dr.-Ing. Klaus Drechsler | Director of Fraunhofer IGCV

From July 2019 to July 2022, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Drechsler held the position of executive director at Fraunhofer IGCV in Augsburg. He took over this role from Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gunther Reinhart, who had been executive director of the Fraunhofer IGCV for a total of three years. Together with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rüdiger Daub and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfram Volk he heads the institute as its director. In addition to his position at Fraunhofer IGCV, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus Drechsler is also head of the Chair of Carbon Composites (LCC) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Prof. Drechsler (born 1960) studied Aerospace Engineering at the University of Stuttgart. He obtained his doctorate in 1991 with the topic “On the design and calculation of Fiber Composites with three-dimensional textile reinforcement”. After a period as an assistant at the university's Institute of Aircraft Design, he moved to Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm's central laboratory in Ottobrunn. There he worked as a Senior Scientist and Head of Department for plastics at DaimlerChrysler and EADS. In 2002, he took over the management and Chair of the Institute of Aircraft Design at the University of Stuttgart. Since 2009, he has held the Chair of Carbon Composites at TUM. Since 2019, he has been one of three directors of the Fraunhofer Institute for Casting, Composite and Processing Technology IGCV in Augsburg.

His research focuses on Material Science, Structural Mechanics, Manufacturing Technology and Fiber Composites (Carbon Composites).

• Chairman of SAMPE Deutschland e. V. (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering) (1996 - 2002)
• President of SAMPE Europe (2003 - 2005)
• Member of WAK (Scientific working group of university professors in the field of Plastics Technology) since 2003
• Member of the Senate Committee of DLR (German Aerospace Center) (2005 - 2011)
• Past President of SAMPE International and SAMPE Fellow since 2005
• Founding board member of Carbon Composite e.V. Augsburg since 2007
• Member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 2010
• Scientific Director of the TUM Venture Lab Aerospace since 2010
• Spokesman of the MAI Carbon Cluster of Excellence (2012 - 2016)
• Vice President of ESCM (European Society for Composite Materials) since 2014
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the Deutsches Museum since 2015
• Board member of Munich Aerospace e. V. since 2015
• Board member of Akaflieg München e. V. since 2018
• Member of acatech - German Academy of Science and Engineering since 2019
• Spokesman of the Composite United e. V. Presidium since 2021

• Admission to the National Academy of Science and Engineering acatech (2018)
  
• AVK award (2015/2016/2017)
• Admission to the Saxon Academy of Sciences (2010)
• SAMPE Fellow Award (2008)
• Admission to the scientific working group of university professors of plastics engineering WAK (2004)

Key publications in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich