Engineering
At the Institute of Concrete Structures Engineering (Prof. Martina Schnellenbach-Held),a self-compacting ultra-high-strength concrete with a new type of micro-reinforcement wasdeveloped. One focus of current research work is on the maintenance and restoration of concrete structures, which has been extended to includea project to measure heavy goods traffic on German highways under automatic continuous monitoring.
The Chair of City Planning and UrbanDesign (Prof. Alexander Schmidt) developed a lighting concept for the city of Bottrop in a project named “stadtLICHTbottrop. Meanwhile, the “Co-operative Project Shanghai: Integrated Approaches Towards a Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Urban Development – Urban Form, Mobility, Housing, and Living is concerned with finding methods of checking rising energy demands in this megacity with efficiency-enhancing strategies.
The main research activities of the Department of Foundation Engineering and Soil Mechanics (Prof. Werner Richwien) in 2007 and 2008 involved sea and estuary dike design and foundation exploration for offshore wind farms, including:
conclusion of the Gigawind project,
approval of the proposed INTBEM project (“Integrierte Bemessung von See- und Ästuardeichen [Integrated Design of Sea and Estuary Dikes]), BMFT / German CoastalEngineering Research Council (KFKI),
compilation of standards for foundationexploration for offshore wind farms, BSH Hamburg,
research collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Loweel.
The Institute of Mechanics (Prof. Jörg Schröder) is currently involved in various DFG projects which permit networking with other disciplines. A project entitled “Massiv parallele Simulationen von Arterienwänden: Kontinuumsmechanische Modellbildung und numerische Lösung mittels FETI-Gebietzerlegungsverfahren [Massive parallel Simulations of Artery Walls: Continuum-mechanical modelling and numeric solutions with the help of FETI-area partitioning methodology] is being conducted in close cooperation with the universitys Medical Faculty in Essen. The “Analysis and computation of microstructures in finite plasticity Research Unit is meanwhile undertaking further projects under the titles of “Konstruktion und Analyse anisotroper polykonvexer Energiefunktionen[Construction and analysis of anisotropicpolyconvex energy functions] and “Statistically similar representative microstructures in elasto-plasticity.
Environmental technology is one of the main concerns of the Department of Urban Water and Waste Management (Prof. Renatus Widmann). Research centres on adapting regional planning and development processes to the effects of climate change, alongside other projects such as an EU proposal under the Marie Curie Initial Training Network: Advanced Technologies for Water Resource Management.
In January 2008, a sponsorship application, submitted by the Institute of Structural Analysis and Construction (Prof. Jochen Menkenhagen) and the Institute of Construction at Dresden Technical University, for a research project onthe development of hybrid steel-glass composite girders was approved by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) under itsInnoNet (sponsorship of innovative networks) HybridGlasSt programme.
The Institute of Computational Mechanics (Junior Professor Tim Ricken) concentrates on the description and computer-aided simulation of biological conversion processes in the human body and in organic matter. The broad range of possible applications includes describing the growth and remodelling processes of bones, cartilage and organs such as the liver, simulating the residual biological activity of urban landfill sites, and describing water-ice phase conversions in concrete structures.