Züblin Stahlbaupreis 2022 awarded

The awarding of the ZÜBLIN Steel Construction Prize to students and graduates from the fields of architecture and civil engineering at Dresden University of Technology took place on 23 June 2022 for what is now the 10th time. This award recognises outstanding work that contributes to the application and further development of metal construction and was produced as part of a degree or doctorate. The expert jury, consisting of Dipl.-Ing. Marco Eckert - technical managing director, Dipl.-Ing. Hagen Urban - technical head of the structural engineering department, Dipl.-Ing. Lars Feulner - head of construction, each from Züblin Stahlbau GmbH in Hosena and the representatives of the Technical University of Dresden, Prof. Dr. Richard Stroetmann, professor for steel construction and vice dean of the faculty of civil engineering and Prof. Dr. Matthias Beckh, professor for structural engineering at the faculty of architecture, nominated a total of six works this year. These dealt with challenging issues from steel construction research and application. One focus this year was the influence of the welding process on steel structures. This included studies on the fabrication and assembly of hydraulic steel structures, analytical and numerical calculations of the welding distortion of steel structures as well as studies on the bending buckling load capacity of welded I and box cross-sections made of high-strength steels and the application of damage-mechanical models for the structural-mechanical calculation of welded joints of high-strength steels with local softening in the area of the heat-affected zone.

In addition, work was presented on the investigation of the areas of discontinuity of orthocomposite deck slabs and the life cycle assessment of building products when using the steel-wood hybrid construction method in multi-storey buildings. The work was of a very high quality throughout and was presented in a convincing manner by the students and graduates of the TU Dresden. The nominees also showed themselves to be well versed and deeply familiar with the respective subject matter in the subsequent expert discussion. The ceremonial awarding of the Züblin Steel Construction Prize 2022 traditionally took place in the evening as part of the TU Dresden's Bauball, which this year was hosted by the students of the 6th and 8th semesters of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. The award ceremony was opened by Mr Eckert with a brief presentation of the company and current projects of Züblin Stahlbau GmbH. The latter aroused the students' interest due to their versatility and the exciting challenges that arise during planning and execution. Mr Eckert then emphasised the challenge of selecting and ranking the prize winners from the thematically diverse and all high-quality submissions. Prof. Stroetmann then took the floor and thanked Züblin Stahlbau GmbH for its great commitment to teaching and research and for the very good cooperation over the past years. Especially in the area of student support, ZÜBLIN Stahlbau supports the TU Dresden with the awarding of scholarships, the Steel Construction Prize, the promotion of social projects by civil engineering students, offers to visit plants and construction sites, and by supervising student research projects and diploma theses.

The prize, worth a total of 3000 euros, was awarded this year for a project thesis and two diploma theses in civil engineering. Due to the high quality of two theses in very different fields, the jury decided to award two 2nd prizes. These were awarded to Dipl.-Ing. Christoph Holzapfel for his diploma thesis on the application of damage-mechanical models for the structural-mechanical analysis of welded joints and to Ms Lisa Wolfram for her project thesis on the life cycle assessment of building products and the use of the steel-wood hybrid construction method in multi-storey buildings (Fig. 2). Within the scope of his diploma thesis, Mr Holzapfel succeeded in working out the properties and differences of current damage-mechanical models and in simulating the realistic simulation of the load-deformation behaviour for welded joints qualitatively and quantitatively up to the point of fracture.

In doing so, he has captured the welded joint as a multi-zone model with the base material, the heat-affected zone and the weld metal and taken into account the separating material behaviour with the descending load-deformation branch. The work forms an excellent basis for the numerical simulation of tests on welded joints and for carrying out the necessary parameter studies for the development of design models.

Lisa Wolfram explored the question of how steel-wood hybrid constructions can contribute to improving the ecological quality of storey buildings. In doing so, she placed an emphasis on the use of hardwoods in order to promote the sustainability of forestry and the goal of climate- and pest-resistant forests. In addition to the predominantly higher density and strength compared to softwoods, the longer growth period and nature of the trees must be taken into account when using hardwoods in the production of building products for storey construction. As part of the life cycle assessment, Ms Wolfram followed the relevant processes for the primary energy demand and the greenhouse potential. In the comparison of different construction methods for multi-storey buildings, she underlined the potential of the steel-wood hybrid construction method due to the significant improvement of the life cycle assessment, the high degree of prefabrication and use as a modular construction method as well as the technical possibilities through the combination with steel. This year's 1st prize was awarded to Ms. Camilla Lewerenz for her diploma thesis on the investigation of the discontinuity areas of ortho composite pavement slabs. In connection with the development of this construction method, the AiF-FOSTA research project P1265 is currently being carried out at the Institute for Steel and Timber Construction at the Technical University of Dresden. Orthotropically stiffened steel plates are supplemented with dowel bars and a slender reinforced concrete layer in order to increase the fatigue strength and eliminate further disadvantages of the orthotropic steel deck plate. In contrast to the classic composite construction method, the dowel bars act in the longitudinal and transverse direction of the bridge deck. As a result, the fatigue stresses due to wheel loads can be reduced to such an extent that an extremely durable and at the same time easy-to-manufacture construction method of bridge decks is created. As part of her diploma thesis, Ms Lewerenz investigated the discontinuity areas that result from local wheel loads in the longitudinal and transverse directions of the bridge deck. For this purpose, she developed FEM models for a deck and a trough bridge in order to investigate the stress on the dowel bars in particular. She designed framework models for the engineering calculation of the load transfer and submitted design proposals for the arrangement of the dowel bars and the formation of the reinforced concrete deck layer. The jury was impressed by the wide-ranging investigations, the practical solution proposals and the in-depth specialist knowledge of Ms Lewerenz. In addition to the certificates, prize money and bouquets of flowers for the prize-winners, a small steel construction was also presented to the 1st prize-winner on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Züblin Steel Construction Prize (Fig. 2). This was designed by Anika Lodwig as part of an ideas competition organised by Züblin Stahlbau GmbH and consists of a T-profile, an eyebar connection and a spanner. Congratulations to all the winners for their outstanding work!

Report:
Dipl.-Ing. Thoralf Kästner Institute for Steel and Timber Construction, Technical University of Dresden