On 01.10.2024 the successful defense of the dissertation of Mr. Johannes Diller took place. The title of the thesis is „Advancing the understanding of the fatigue behaviour of AISI 316L, manufactured via powder bed fusion of metals using a laser beam (PBF-LB/M)".

We are pleased with Dr.-Ing. Johannes Diller and would like to thank Prof. Krafft (Ruhr-Universität Bochum) and Prof. Rutner (Hamburg University of Technology) for taking over the co-lecture as well as Prof. Dörfler (TU Munich) for chairing the examination.

Our doctoral seminar in the summer semester 2024 took place in Chieming with 15 participants. Current research work was presented in 9 detailed presentations followed by a discussion and new research ideas were collected. The lectures dealt with fire protection safe constructions in steel-wood mixed construction, seal-welded hollow boxes, beam-column and slab-column connections of high-performance composite columns made of high-strength steel, additive manufacturing in metal construction and the mechanical behaviour of multi-material parts manufactured with laser DED. Other topics included form and production optimisation of welded-on lamellas, steel-timber hybrid construction, modelling and testing of welded hollow structural connections processed with laser cutting technology, the assessment of the fatigue safety of welded railway bridges and the sustainable maintenance of cyclically loaded industrial steel structures. We also had Simos Gerasimidis as a guest on Monday, who presented his research to us and collected ideas for future joint projects.

Dr.-Ing. Heiko Trumpf, IWE has been appointed honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich. We would like to congratulate him on this! Heiko Trumpf holds the lecture " Structural design of glass constructions" at the Chair of Metal Structures very successfully and always with an outstanding feedback from the students, which he took over from Prof. Mensinger many years ago. At that time, Heiko Trumpf approached Prof. Mensinger because he wanted to maintain contact with universities and students. He is not only an enrichment for us because of his expertise, but also because of his really positive personality.
We would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Professor Trumpf! We and our students are very much looking forward to the next years! 😊

The certificate of appointment was handed over by our Vice President Prof. Dr. Jeanne Rubner.

Photography: U. Benz, Technical University of Munich

On July 10 at 1 pm, Alper Kanyilmaz will present his latest research findings. You are cordially invited to the lecture! There will also be plenty of time to ask questions and engage in conversation. Please register briefly if you wish to attend in person; participation via Zoom is also possible. [read more]

On 06.06.2024 the successful defense of the dissertation of Mr. Mathias Rengstl took place. The title of the thesis is „Welded Joints of Alloy AA7020 with Quasi-Static and Variable Loading in Context of Low Cycle Fatigue of DIN EN 1999-1-3".

We are pleased with Dr.-Ing.Mathias Rengstl and would like to thank Prof. Maljaars (TU Eindhoven) for taking over the co-lecture as well as Prof. Fischer (TU Munich) for chairing the examination.

From 3 June to 5 June, Prof. Mensinger visited his colleagues in Temeswar and gave a block lecture on steel bridge construction in the German-language civil engineering course there. The students there were very interested and most of them also speak very good German. It was a lot of fun, not only because of the great atmosphere during the lecture, but also because of the tremendous hospitality of the Romanian colleagues!

At Corpus Christi, Prof. Mensinger was invited to join Prof. Nikolaos Lagaros and Prof. Marco Simoncelli on the examination board for the doctorate of Aleksei Kondratenko, who completed his doctorate at the Politecnico di Milano on the use of AI in the optimisation of steel structures with dissipative dampers. He was supervised by Prof Alper Kanyilmaz, who will soon be joining us in Munich as a TUM Global Visiting Professor. As a reward for defending his doctoral thesis, he will receive a doctoral wreath in Milan.

In recent weeks, Prof Mensinger has also been a member of the examination committee for Özgün Ergün's dissertation at the University of Luxembourg (Innovative Design Method for Concrete-Encased Steel Composite Columns) and for Nick Blau's dissertation at the University of Wuppertal (Investigations into the fatigue safety of transverse frame connections in composite bridges). Congratulations to the doctoral candidates!

On 13.05.2024 the successful defense of the dissertation of Mr. Thomas Riedel took place. The title of the thesis is "Contribution to the assessment of the fatigue safety of riveted railway bridges made of mild steel on the basis of fracture mechanics investigations".

We are pleased with Dr.-Ing.Thomas Riedel and would like to thank Prof. Flederer (HTW Dresden) and Prof. Unterweger (TU Graz) for taking over the co-lecture as well as Prof. Fischer (TU Munich) for chairing the examination.

The Long Night of Music 2024 in Munich is over. For the first time, the Technical University of Munich was directly involved with 3 bands on the main campus. Many thanks to the Old's Cool Bigband of the professors, to the Soul Jazz Combo and to Baulärm, who together provided a sensational 6 hours of good mood. Thanks also to the student council of the CEE department for their fantastic efforts, to the many cake bakers, to all those who set up and dismantled and to Rainer and Nathalie Grimm for the gin and tonic. And there were many more guests than expected. A big thank you to you too. It was a really nice evening with lots of good music and many happy faces!

Ernst & Sohn supported the Munich Steel Construction Days for the third time by awarding the prize for the best presentation by a young engineer. This prize was awarded to Fabian Seitz from the Chair of Steel Construction at the University of the Bundeswehr Munich for his presentation "Fatigue testing on a historic railway bridge". Second place went to Drilon Gubetini from the Chair of Metal Structures (TUM) for his presentation "High-strength steels in scaffolding and crane construction".

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the winners and are delighted with the awards! It's great that so many different topics are attracting interest in practice.

Our PhD seminar in the winter semester 2023/2024 took place with 15 participants in St. Martin am Tennengebirge. Current research work was presented and new research ideas were collected in 10 detailed presentations followed by a discussion. The lectures dealt with fire protection safe constructions in steel-wood mixed construction, the load-bearing behavior of headed studs in profiled sheets with high webs under fire load, seal-welded hollow boxes, the mechanical properties of welded connections in aluminum lattice structures and additive manufacturing in metal construction. Other topics included composite columns with high-strenth steel plates as core, steel-timber hybrid construction, high-strength pipes, modular rolled beam in concrete frame bridges, the assessment of the fatigue safety of welded railroad bridges and the sustainable preservation of cyclically loaded industrial steel structures.

Our PhD seminar in the summer semester 2023 took place with 14 participants in the Martelltal. In the course of 10 detailed presentations with subsequent discussion, current research work was presented and new research ideas were collected. The lectures dealt with fire protection safe constructions in steel-wood mixed construction, tightly welded hollow boxes, the form and production optimization on welded-on lamellas and additive manufacturing in metal construction. Other topics included galvanized frame bridges, hot-dip galvanized composite beams and the load-bearing behavior of headed studs in profiled plates with high webs under fire loading, the fatigue strength of the shear bond with headed studs under uniaxial and multiaxial fatigue loading, and the assessment of the fatigue safety of welded railroad bridges. A joint excursion to a mountain hut in great weather supplemented the presentation program.

The work under all four phases of Mandate M/515 'Towards a second generation of EN Eurocodes' agreement has now been concluded. On behalf of Steve Denton (CEN/TC 250 Chairman) and Tracey Wilkins Prof. Mensinger was presented with a BSI Certificate of Appreciation for his valued contribution to this important work.

At the beginning of September, the European steel construction research and industry community met for the most important conference in structural steel engineering EUROSTEEL 2023 in Amsterdam. At the three-day event, more than 500 participants from over 38 nations gave nearly 450 presentations on numerous current topics from research and development in steel and reinforced concrete composite construction and related topics. Also included were four papers from the Chair of Metal Structures on fillet welds of seal-welded box girders, the influence of elastomeric bearings of shear rockers on the buckling analysis in the incremental launching method, the load-bearing behavior of headed studs in high-strength profiled plates in fire, and the residual stresses of thick, high-strength steel plates. All contributions are freely available as ce / paper from the publisher Ernst & Sohn. In addition to the interesting conference contributions, exciting discussions and networks for industry and young researchers resulted. After the conference, participants could join the discussion on "Addressing future needs by new technologies and education in steel construction" at the Post-Conference Event at TU Delft.

We  would like to thank all the organizers from TU Delft under the leadership of Prof. Veljkovic and the ETH Zurich under the leadership of Prof. Taras for the successful event and look forward to the next edition of EUROSTEEL in Krakow 2026.

The 13th Japanese-German Bridge Symposium took place in Osaka at the end of August. A total of 67 papers were presented, which led to fruitful discussions. The Chair of Metal Structures presented 5 papers and gave a keynote lecture. In addition to the interesting presentation days, two excursion days were organised, including visits to bridge construction sites, the Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge and the Hanshin Expressway Earthquake Museum. The sights gave an interesting insight in Japanese construction techniques and lessons learned from the big Kobe earthquake. Furthermore, the Japanese-German friendship was cultivated and deepened at joint evening events.

We thank our Japanese colleagues for their impeccable organisation and hospitality and look forward to the next symposium in Munich in 2025.

On 14 July, the graduation ceremony of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering took place with the farewell of the graduates and the awarding of prizes. Every year, the student council of the Department Civil and Environmental Engineering awards teaching prizes to lecturers who have shown a special commitment to teaching. This year, the second prize of the Doce et Delecta teaching award was given to Prof. Martin Mensinger for the Bachelor course Introduction to Steel Construction. We are pleased that the revision of the course has paid off and that students are being introduced to steel construction with pleasure. At the subsequent celebration in front of the Audimax, the band Baulärm played and provided a super atmosphere.

Our PhD seminar in the winter semester 2022/2023 took place with 17 participants in St. Martin am Tennengebirge. In the course of 10 detailed lectures with subsequent discussion, current research work was presented and new research ideas were collected. The presentations dealt with fire-protection safe constructions in steel-wood mixed construction, seal-welded hollow boxes, mechanical properties of welded joints in aluminum lattice structures and additive manufacturing in metal construction. Other topics included ultimate load increase of predominantly compression loaded hollow structures, longitudinally stiffened buckling fields under multiaxial loading, and fatigue safety assessment of riveted and welded railroad bridges.

The third and fourth grades of the Dintikon elementary school have recently been working intensively on the topic of "bridges" and have really learned a lot about it.
At the end of this project, Prof. Mensinger designed a lesson for the students and explained how a bridge is designed, planned and built.
Finally, a model was used to explain how a suspension bridge works. Here thanks go to Michael Schulte-Wrede for providing the model.

The interest was huge, there were really good questions and everyone had a lot of fun!

We think it's great when even elementary school students come into contact with our profession!

Every year, the student council of the Department Civil and Environmental Engineering awards teaching prizes to lecturers who have shown a special commitment to teaching. This year, the first prize of the Doce et Delecta teaching award was given to Prof. Martin Mensinger for the Bachelor course Introduction to Steel Construction. We are pleased that the revision of the course has paid off and that students are being introduced to steel construction with pleasure.

Every year, the Maurer Söhne Foundation awards the Maurer Söhne Foundation Award with the aim of rewarding outstanding bachelor's and master's theses as well as doctoral dissertations in the field of engineering dynamics. For the non-profit promotion of research and science, in particular basic research in the field of dynamics in the field of structural engineering, final theses are awarded that deal with basic research in structural dynamics. This year, Ludwig Siebert's master's thesis entitled "Defect analysis of µ-CT scanned, additively manufactured fatigue specimens using machine learning" was awarded. He developed a method to detect and classify internal defects of additively manufactured fatigue specimens based on CT scans and using machine learning algorithms. We sincerely congratulate Ludwig Siebert on this award and are very happy about the distinction of one of our many interesting final theses at the Chair of Metal Structures!

Since 2018, Schroeder & Associés from Luxembourg awards every year 3 bachelor theses in the field of civil engineering. This year, one of these awards was given to the bachelor thesis of Fabien Schanet on the topic "Evaluation of parametric FE shell models on cross joints in Ansys APDL using the structural stress concept". The thesis dealt with the modeling and the determination of the stresses on cross joints modeled with shell elements using the structural stress concept. We would like to congratulate Fabien Schanet and are very happy about the award for one of our many interesting theses at the Chair of Metal Structures!

Our PhD seminar in the summer semester 2022 took place in Bolzano with 12 participants. In the course of 10 detailed presentations with subsequent discussion, current research work was presented and new research ideas were collected. The presentations dealt with galvanized frame bridges, composite columns with sheet metal sections using high strength steel, the structural stress concept in steel construction, and additive manufacturing in metal construction. Other topics included seal-welded hollow boxes, shape and fabrication optimization of welded-on plates, hot-dip galvanized composite beams and the load-bearing behavior of headed bolt studs in profiled plates with high webs under fire loading. Presentations were also given on high-strength tubes in scaffolding and the assessment of the fatigue safety of riveted and welded railroad bridges.

For the second time, Ernst & Sohn supported the Munich Steel Construction Days in terms of content by awarding the young engineers for the best presentation. This prize was awarded to Florian Oberhaidinger from the Chair of Metal Structures with the presentation "Galvanization-compliant grouted joint for integral frame bridges in composite construction". The paper will be published in the journal "Stahlbau" in 2023.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Florian and are very pleased about the award! It is nice that such an innovative topic meets with approval in practice.

Due to pandemics, the 23rd DASt Research Colloquium in Dortmund was held as a purely digital event on February 22 and 23, 2022. The established DASt Research Colloquium offers young researchers in steel, metal and composite construction an excellent platform to present their own research work to a broad, interested professional audience. Rudolf Röß from the Chair of Metal Construction was awarded second prize for his presentation on "Fabrication and structural details of bar bundle columns".

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Rudolf and are very happy about the award! It is nice that the innovative bar bundle columns meet with approval in practice.

Our PhD seminar in the summer semester 2021 took place in Munich with 17 participants. In the course of 14 detailed presentations with subsequent discussion, current research work was presented and new research ideas were collected. The presentations dealt with galvanized frame bridges, bar-bundle columns with high-strength reinforcing steel, composite columns with sheet metal sections using high strength steel, longitudinally stiffened buckling fields under multiaxial loading, and additive manufacturing in metal construction. Other topics included the ultimate load increase of predominantly compression loaded hollow structures, shape and fabrication optimization on welded-on plates, hot-dip galvanized composite beams and the load-bearing behavior of headed bolt studs in profiled plates with high webs under fire loading. Presentations were also given on high-strength tubes in scaffolding, the assessment of the fatigue safety of riveted and welded railroad bridges, the development of a mobile safety system for protection against vehicle attacks, and the automated preliminary structural design of steel-concrete composite buildings.

In the summer semester of 2021, our master's students have worked out and visualized designs for the replacement of the Ständlerstraße - A8 cycle path bridge.

A total of nine teams designed a wide variety of bike bridge structures under the supervision of Professor Martin Mensinger of the Chair of Metal Structures. In addition to idea generation and concept development at the beginning of the project, calculation, construction and visualization were important components of the project. The students received direct practical support from five Munich civil engineering offices.

The results are attractive designs of a barrier-free pedestrian and bicycle bridge as truss, arch and cable-stayed structures. The designs are based on the planning principles of the building department and were presented on 15.07.2021 in the Audimax of the TUM and met with an enthusiastic response. If you are interested in details of the designs, please contact our secretariat.

We would like to thank the civil engineering offices BPR, Bulicek, Grassl, SSF, ZMI for their support and the students for their extraordinary commitment. We would like to thank Mr. Michael Dzeba, City Councillor, representing the Lord Mayor of the City of Munich, and Mr. Andreas Kapeller, representing the Building Department, for coming and for their cooperation.

Steel is already the building material with by far the highest recycling rate. Well over 90% of the rolled sections used in German-speaking countries, are made of recycled material which, after use, can even be reused to make particularly high-quality products and does not have to be "thermally recycled" or buried in road construction.

Now the steel industry, together with the German government, is setting out on the road to C02-neutral steel production. The aim is to replace carbon as a reducing agent in primary steel production with climate-neutral hydrogen.

Further information on this major step in the right direction can be found here:

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/suche/konzept-stahlindustrie-1767100

For us, this is an incentive to continue our commitment to sustainable steel as a building material in research and teaching!

This year's Munich Steel Construction Days will take place at the Munich University of Applied Sciences on December 2 and 3, 2021.

Two of our scientific employees will also give us insights into their research as part of the presentations.

Niclas Rausch will talk about the structural stress concept and Florian Oberhaidinger will report on galvanized frame bridges.

The main topics are:

•     News from steel construction standardization
•     News in steel construction
•     Projects in bridge construction
•     News from steel construction research in Munich
•     Historical steel structures
•     Special topics and projects in structural engineering