The establishment of the competence centre is intended to strengthen interdisciplinary materials research projects at HTWK Leipzig
On 8 June 2021, Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig) founded a new competence centre for materials research. The university is thus facilitating interdisciplinary cooperation in the field of materials research and the cross-faculty use of existing equipment technology for analytical and material-diagnostic issues. The centre was founded in the presence of Vice-Rector Prof. Dr Ralf Thiele and the professors Robert Böhm (Chair of Lightweight Construction with Composite Materials), Paul Rosemann (Chair of Materials Engineering), Christian Wagner (Chair of Building Materials) and Klaus Holschemacher (Chair of Reinforced Concrete Construction).
Prof Dr Ralf Thiele, Vice-Rector for Research at HTWK Leipzig: "We at HTWK Leipzig are committed to the FONA strategy, research for sustainability. The research and development of resource-saving and sustainable building materials and high-performance materials is increasingly taking on a central role in order to research solutions for socially relevant challenges, particularly with regard to climate and environmental protection, in a variety of ways. By concentrating and pooling expertise and expanding the field through the newly created Competence Centre for Materials Research, we want to achieve even better scientific progress for sectors such as the construction industry, mechanical engineering and energy technology in the future."
Goal: Establish materials research as a research focus
The members of the newly created Competence Centre for Materials Research want to jointly initiate interdisciplinary research projects in the field of materials research in the future, organise the procurement of new large-scale equipment and thus establish materials research as a future focus at HTWK Leipzig over the next few years. Cooperation with the Analytical Centre of the University's Mathematics and Natural Sciences Centre (MNZ) is planned, as well as with interested researchers from all faculties.
The four initiators are involved in the Competence Centre for Materials Research:
Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Robert Böhm has held the professorship "Lightweight Construction with Composite Materials" at the Faculty of Engineering since 2020. He is a proven expert in the fields of lightweight construction, fibre-reinforced composites (FRP), multifunctional materials, material mechanics and experimental material diagnostics. He works in the field of customised composites and in recent years has been involved in the development of customised carbon fibres (CF) for applications in construction, aviation and automotive engineering.
Prof Dr Paul Rosemann has held the Chair of Materials Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering since 2021. As a recognised expert in the fields of materials engineering, metallurgy, heat treatment, materials testing, structure, microstructure and surface analysis, failure analysis and corrosion of metallic materials, he is involved in research projects and publications on topics such as the interaction between microstructure, surface and corrosion resistance of stainless steels. He develops and utilises various new electrochemical testing and analysis methods for this group of materials.
Prof Dr Christian Wagner has held the Chair of Building Materials Science at the Faculty of Civil Engineering since 2017. He has many years of experience and international industry knowledge in the fields of concrete and reinforced concrete construction, repair and reinforcement of buildings, mineral-bound building materials with short fibre reinforcement, building material testing and quality assurance of building materials. Among other things, he has developed high-performance construction materials and models for the bonding behaviour between old concrete and fibre-reinforced repair or reinforcement layers.
Prof Dr Klaus Holschemacher has been Professor of Reinforced Concrete Construction since 1996. He founded the Institute for Concrete Construction (IfB) at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in 2006 and still heads it today. The IfB specialises in solid construction and sustainable building. Environmentally compliant and sustainable new building materials play an important role in research projects, as do building material and component-specific analyses. The IfB was also involved in the world's first building made of carbon concrete and is also the third location of the Carbon Concrete Technology Centre Germany. Other key research areas include the development of high-performance concrete, fibre-reinforced concrete and wood-concrete composites.
