News

Welcome to new colleague Dr. Ahmad Al-Qudsi!

Dr. Ahmad Al-Qudsi received his doctorate in 2019 from the Technical University of Braunschweig. Since August 2022, he has been working as a research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research (WKI) / Center for Lightweight and Environmentally Friendly Buildings (ZELUBA) in Braunschweig and has been supporting the project "Creation of a guideline for building multi-storey buildings with wood with explicit consideration of wind loads" in our department since June 1, 2024. We look forward to a good collaboration.

Welcome to new colleague Ms. M. Sc. Si Chen!

Ms. Chen is an exchange PhD student of Nanjing Forestry University, her PhD thesis focuses on the mechanical properties and structural performance of bamboo glued laminated timber and bamboo glued laminated timber-concrete composite structures. Ms. Chen will work on the long-term modeling of glued laminated timber-concrete composite structures in our research group. We look forward to a good cooperation.

Our following paper received the 2023 Most Downloaded Paper Award from Journal of Resources, Conservation & Recycling. 

Wang, B., Yan, L., Fu, Q., & Kasal, B. (2021). A comprehensive review on recycled aggregate and recycled aggregate concrete. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 171, 105565.

The annual Most Downloaded Paper Awards are given to the papers published in Resources, Conservation & Recycling journal in a given year (2021 in this case) that received the highest numbers of downloads or full article views through ScienceDirect in the following three years including the year it was published (2021-2023 in this case).

In addition, this paper is also one of the most cited articles of Journal of Resources, Conservation & Recycling.

Congratulations to the authors of this article! (Dr.-Ing. Bo Wang, Prof. Libo Yan, Dr. Qiuni Fu, Prof. Bohumil Kasal).

We welcome our new colleague Mr. M.Sc. Junaid Ajaz Dand.

Mr. Dand completed his Master's degree in Advanced Computational and Civil Engineering Structural Studies at TU Dresden in 2019, after that he worked as a civil engineer in the construction industry. He will work as a research assistant in the group that aims to create guidelines for the construction of multi-storey buildings using timber, with a specific focus on taking wind loads into account. We are looking forward to a good cooperation.

We welcome our new exchange PhD student Mr. Yu Wang.

Mr. Wang comes from the Laboratory of Textile Physics and Mechanics, South Alsace NAtional School of Engineering, University of Haute-Alsace, France. He will join the junior research group and will work on the modeling of fibers and fabrics. We are looking forward to a good cooperation in the next 6 months.

Ms. Dr. Juan Li has been awarded the Ph.D. Prize of the International Academy of Wood Science in 2023. The internationally prestigious award is presented once a year for outstanding research achievements in the field of wood and fiber science and technology.

Dr. Juan Li is a research associate at the Fraunhofer WKI. She is responsible for the "Atomic Force Microscopes (AFM)" and "Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis (DMTA)" laboratories and works in materials research. During her doctoral studies, she was a member and scholarship holder of the DFG Research Training Group 2075 "Models for the description of state change during aging of building materials and load-bearing structures" at the TU Braunschweig, in which the Fraunhofer WKI is a partner.

Congratulations!

On 9 November 2023, Mr Bo Wang successfully defended his dissertation on "Microstructural Analysis, Mechanical Characterization and Durability Study on Coir Fibre Reinforced Recycled Aggregate Concrete", supervised by Professor Libo Yan, PhD and Professor Dr.-Ing. Bohumil Kasal. Mr. Wang will then conduct postdoctoral research at Tongji University.

We would like to congratulate Mr. Wang on his successful dissertation and wish him all the best and every success in his future career in China.

On October 27, 2023, Ms. Silu Huang successfully defended her dissertation on "Bond behavior and long-term durability of flax-glass hybrid FRP-timber composite structures in the hygrothermal environment", supervised by Professor Libo Yan, PhD and Professor Dr.-Ing Bohumil Kasal. Ms. Li will then continue her academic career in China.

We would like to congratulate Ms. Huang on her successful dissertation and wish her all the best and every success in her future career in China.

On 04-October-2023,  Stanford University released the sixth edition of the World's Top 2% Scientists 2022. The lists are divided into "Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking (whole career list)" - focusing on the influence of the whole academic career so far, and "Annual Scientific Influence Ranking (Single Year list)" - focusing on the academic achievements on 2022. Prof. Kasal and Prof. Yan were on both lists once again. From TU Braunschweig, they are total 83 researchers are on the World's Top 2% Scientists "Career" list and 53 researchers are on the World's Top 2% Scientists "Single Year" list.

At Fraunhofer WKI, Prof. Kasal, Prof. Salthammer and Prof. Yan were on the World Top 2% Scientists list. From Fraunhofer Society, they are total 97 researchers the World's Top 2% Scientists "Career" list and 73 researchers are on the World's Top 2% Scientists "Single Year" list.

Please refer to following link for the World’s Top 2% Scientists list: https://jokergoooo.shinyapps.io/top2pct_scientists/

Department of Organic Building Materials and Wood Materials is looking for a research associate (m/f/d) in the research area "Experimental and numerical simulation of multi-storey wooden buildings under wind loads".

Details can be found at the following link:

• Job Offer

Mr. Henrik Schulze left our department on 31.08.2023, we thank him for the cooperation. He has made valuable contributions to our research projects over the years. He will be missed by his former colleagues. We wish him all the best for his future.

Mr. Bright Asante has left our department as of June 30th, 2023, to continue his professional journey at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) in Berlin. Over the past years, He has made valuable contributions to our research projects. He will be missed by his former colleagues. We wish him all the best for his future.

Dr. Qiuni Fu left our department on May 31, 2023 to continue her career path at the University of Luxembourg. Ms. Fu has made valuable contributions to our research projects over the years. She will be missed by many colleagues. We wish her all the best for the future.

On December 7, 2022, Juan Li successfully defended her doctoral thesis titled "Aging of wood as a construction material measured by atomic force microscopy," supervised by Prof. Kasal, with the distinction of Summa cum laude. We congratulate her warmly and wish her all the best and much success in her future endeavors. We would like to thank the GRK 2075 for supporting her doctoral studies.

Welcome our new colleagues, Friedrich Rüßmann, M. Sc. Henrik Schulze, M. Sc. Bright Asante, and M. Sc. Haoze Chen. We look forward to a successful collaboration.

Our PhD student Bo Wang and another doctoral student, Yinan Xiao from the Institute of Structural Design, have been awarded "Recognition" in the 10th Concrete Design Competition 2021/2022 - ReImagine. This competition is organized by the Information Center for Concrete and took place in five European countries this year.

The competition entry by Mr. Bo Wang and Mr. Yinan Xiao demonstrated the practical possibilities of combining concrete 3D printing with natural fiber-reinforced recycled concrete. The contribution was supervised by Apl. Prof. Libo Yan and Prof. Norman Hack (Institute of Structural Design) and supported by Dr. Aileen Vandenberg (Department of Building Materials at IBMB).

In addition to the prize money, Mr. Bo Wang and Mr. Yinan Xiao, along with the winners from other countries, were invited to the international Concrete Design Masterclass from August 21st to 28th, 2022, in Kassel. The Masterclass is accompanied by the 'documenta 15,' which is considered the world's most important series of exhibitions for contemporary art.

Congratulations on this award!

The conference was co-organized by the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) and took place from September 8th to 10th, 2021, in Prague, Czech Republic. Researchers and research students from around the world gathered to discuss the sustainability of concrete for future construction. Dr. Fu and Nemati Giv each delivered a presentation.

Dr. Fu: "Bending Behavior of Adhesively-bonded Engineered Wood-Concrete Composite Decks"

Nemati Giv: "Interfacial Bond Behavior of Adhesively-Bonded Timber/Cast-in-situ Concrete (Wet Bond Process)"

The International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC), an international professional organization for fiber-reinforced polymer in construction, has awarded Professor Dr. Libo Yan the IIFC Distinguished Young Researcher Award 2021.

Congratulations!

News release

We welcome our new colleagues Achyuth Attravanam and Dharini Balachandran and look forward to a good cooperation.

Since April 23, 2021, Dr. Libo Yan has been working as an Associate Professor at our institute. We look forward to continuing our successful collaboration.