Building a sustainable future together

Composite structures in steel and concrete are very efficient for building structures and bridges. Our research investigates steel-concrete composite beams, columns, and shear connectors. Thereby the potential of high-performance materials as fibre reinforced concrete, high strength concrete and steel is reinvented. Another research topic is on the further development of advanced design methods, e.g., the general method, probabilistic method and design including machine learning. In particular, the research findings contribute to the development of new methods for redundant, robust structures and promote innovative structures to increase safety.

One major research focus is on the development of re-usable composite structures allowing non-destructive dismantling and re-use of entire structural components e.g., by innovative shear connectors. The simplification of site execution is important, the team is therefore investigating in fast erection strategies and development of new joint technologies. The combination of structural design with the construction methodology is leading to holistic solution that can also be visualised by the digital twin allowing the real time simulation of site processes but also the interface to structural design software.