Laboratories and Workshops

In the Soil Mechanics Laboratory of the Chair of Soil Mechanics, Foundation Engineering and Environmental Geotechnics, numerous test facilities are available. These include standard tests for the determination of classical soil properties, as well as a wide range of special test facilities for research. The focus of experimental research is on the behavior of soils under cyclic and dynamic loading, the behavior of partially saturated soils and clays, and the behavior of modified soils.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Soil Mechanics, Foundation Engineering and Environmental Geotechnics.

In the EPB-Laboratory of the Chair of Tunneling and Construction Management, the essential properties of conditioning agents and conditioned loose rock can be investigated and evaluated with regard to their suitability for conditioning or as a supporting medium. The properties that can be determined in laboratory tests include, for example, density and drainage behavior (foam) for conditioning agents or consistency or workability, water permeability, compressibility, density or even shear strength for conditioned soils.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Tunneling and Construction Management.

The faculty workshop has a versatile machine park with various conventional as well as modern CNC-controlled cutting machines. A fully equipped water jet cutting system is available for cutting tasks with high demands on accuracy and speed. The specialized workshop team, consisting of precision mechanics and technicians from the mechanical engineering field, manufactures individual experimental and test equipment for a wide range of applications from basic research, teaching and exclusive research for industry.

Information will follow soon.

For many years, wind tunnel tests have been one of the most important decision-making aids for complex aerodynamic issues. In the boundary layer wind tunnel, rough and turbulent atmospheric winds and thus realistic storms are simulated for structural analyses.

Further information as well as a virtual wind tunnel tour can be found on the website of the Wind Engineering and Fluid Mechanics working group.

Innovative multiple test rigs are available at the Lab of the Chair of Building Materials, which allow simultaneous cyclic loading of different concrete specimens and can investigate their fatigue behavior in compression as well as in tension and bending threshold at very high numbers of load cycles.

The well-equipped laboratories of the Department of Building Materials offer a wide range of material-technological investigation possibilities, such as the determination of the chloride penetration resistance and the freeze-thaw resistance of concrete, the assessment of concrete attack by sulfate rubbing, alkali-silica reaction or acid attack on concrete, the characterization of the rheological properties of concrete and mortar, chemical and physical analyses of inorganic substances as well as microscopic microstructure investigations of concrete and mortar.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Building Materials.

With the help of the Q400 measuring system from Limess, 3D full-field measurements of strains are used in the context of an experiment newly developed at the chair, in which inhomogeneous distortion fields can be applied and thus a wide variety of parameters of nonlinear, anisotropic properties can be determined from a single test.

Mechanical properties under combined compressive/tensile torsional loads can be determined both in the Schenk-Trebel servo hydraulic testing machine with Doli-Control (compressive/tensile load up to 160 kN, torsional moment 1kNm at +-50°, test frequency up to 100 Hz, testing speed up to 15 m/s) and with the mechanical testing machine Schenk-Trebel with Doli-Control (compression/tension load up to 50 kN, torsional moment up to 0.3kNm at 360°, testing frequency up to 5 Hz, testing speed up to 500 mm/min).

Rheological properties such as flow behavior, deformation stability, creep and relaxation behavior as well as thixotropy and rheopexy can be investigated at temperatures from -40 °C to 200 °C using Anton Paar's air-bearing rheometer MCR 301 (frequency range 10-5 - 102 Hz, shear rates 10-5 - 104 s-1).

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Mechanics – Continuum Mechanics.

The laboratory of the Chair of Highway and Road Engineering offers the possibility to characterize building materials for road construction, to investigate their performance and to optimize them on this basis. In addition to general civil engineering tests, the focus here is on the field of the service behavior of the binder "bitumen" as well as asphalt, the use of secondary raw materials in bound and unbound layers of the road structure and the surface properties of roads. The goals here are, in particular, the durability of roads, the conservation of natural resources, the further development of innovative asphalt construction methods, and the reduction of environmental pollution despite the fact that traffic will continue to increase in the future.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of  Highway and Road Engineering.

The Active Vibration Reduction Laboratory develops and implements advanced controllers for smart structures. The lab has systems for hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) implementation of advanced control methods.

For active vibration reduction, control loops are designed using piezoelectric actuators and sensors, as well as laser-based sensors. The range of used controllers includes robust, optimal, sliding-mode, fuzzy, disturbance rejection controllers and other advanced control techniques. The control loops are implemented using Matlab/Simulink in the dSPACE HiL system. Experimentally identified and numerical models are used for model-based control techniques.

Further information can be found on the website of the AG Mechanics of Adaptive Systems.

The Laboratory of Experimental Modal Analysis and Machine Diagnostics offers experimental investigations of vibration behavior and diagnostics of various structures and systems as part of the projects and courses.

Many vibration-induced problems in practice can be classified and accordingly successfully eliminated by careful analysis of the vibration behavior. Experimental test benches are available in the laboratory for experimental modal analysis and machine diagnosis, which are used for the analysis and solution of vibration problems.

The experimental environment of the laboratory gives students of engineering departments the opportunity to deepen their theoretical knowledge as well as to gain a higher understanding of vibration problems occurring in practice through practical applications. For guests and partners from industry, especially SMEs, the laboratory offers practical solutions for modal analysis through experimental vibration studies, data acquisition and measurement data evaluation.

Further information can be found on the website of the AG Mechanics of Adaptive Systems.

Ultrasonic measurements for nondestructive testing (NDT) are performed in the laser laboratory.

A laboratory for non-contact vibration measurements in the sub-nanometer range has been set up in the WG Mechanics of Adaptive Systems. The laboratory has a powerful, highly sensitive laser-based system that enables the investigation of various mineral samples by precise automated positioning of the measuring head with travels of up to 800 x 1600 x 350 mm. The system is used for the investigation of advance exploration possibilities in mechanized tunneling (SFB 837, subproject A2) as well as for non-destructive investigations of diverse materials with different surface properties.

Further information can be found on the website of the AG Mechanics of Adaptive Systems.

The Chair of Urban Water Management and Environmental Engineering has a modern analytical laboratory with a focus on physicochemical as well as microbiological aspects.

In addition to standard molecular biological equipment, the microbiological analysis laboratory of genetic safety level S1 is equipped with a confocal laser scanning microscope for fluorescence in situ hybridization and biofilm analysis. In addition to analyses within the scope of research projects, student internships and theses are also carried out in the laboratories.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Urban Water Management and Environmental Engineering.

Fire in a tunnel or in a building construction is not only a direct threat to people, but can also damage the construction itself from temperatures of approx. 300 °C. If the fire spreads uncontrolled, temperatures >1000 °C can be reached quickly, particularly in enclosed spaces.

For tests of building materials and components under such massive thermal loads, the Chair of Tunnelling and Construction Management has a test furnace in modular design. This allows precise control of the temperature development and the load on the components during heating. A combination of only 4 basic elements allows the realization of different furnace chambers. The stability behavior of structures under exceptional temperature effects can thus also be investigated under load. Each wall module can be controlled and regulated individually and has a heating capacity of 9 kW. With the help of this test furnace, investigations at a heating rate of > 50K/min and maximum temperatures of up to 1,200 °C are possible.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Tunnelling and Construction Management.

The Chair of Urban Water Management and Environmental Engineering has a modern analytical laboratory with a focus on physicochemical as well as microbiological aspects.

The Physical-Chemical Laboratory is equipped for the analysis of a wide range of standard wastewater parameters, which are regularly further developed. Many analyses are carried out according to standardized procedures; in addition, deviating from these, in-house methods are developed. The instrumental equipment includes, for example, various ion and gas chromatographs, a GC-MS, a particle analyzer, AAS and ICP as well as a GCC-IRMS for the analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Urban Water Management and Environmental Engineering.

The SCOTT (Sprayed COncrete Testing unit for Tunnelling) sprayed concrete test rig for the large-scale production of sprayed concrete specimens is located in the area of structural component testing. The central unit of the test stand is a technically advanced spraying robot with which defined and constant boundary conditions can be set and controlled movements of the spraying nozzle can be carried out.

Sprayed concrete is indispensable for securing conventional tunnels. Therefore, the Chair of Tunnelling and Construction Management operates the SCOTT (Sprayed COncrete Testing unit for Tunnelling) test facility. The central element of the test stand is a KUKA industrial robot with which controlled movements of the spray nozzle can be carried out and thus comparative tests can be performed under controlled and reproducible conditions. With the aid of the PLC control system, all test-dependent variables are recorded in real time (e.g. rebound, flow rate, etc.), which are then made available for evaluation purposes. Variation of individual parameters, such as accelerator quantity or aggregate grain, is thus possible. The drilling and sawing stand belonging to the trainer also enables the production of all test specimen geometries. As a result, it is possible to carry out all quality tests on shotcrete in accordance with DIN. This additionally includes the necessary tests for early strength development.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Tunnelling and Construction Management.

The TLB-Bentonite Laboratory has test facilities to investigate the interaction behavior of bentonite suspensions with different soils in a practical way and to adapt the suspension properties specifically to the geological boundary conditions of construction measures (e.g. penetration behavior with and without charging, support pressure tests, compressed air tests).

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair for Tunnelling and Construction Management.

The experimental facility of the Chair of Urban Water Management and Environmental Engineering has a connection to the Ölbach valley wastewater treatment of the Ruhrverband Bochum and thus enables experiments on a laboratory and semi-industrial scale that can be carried out with different wastewater qualities. The technical equipment includes aerobic and anaerobic reactors, filter systems and gas analysis.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Urban Water Management and Environmental Engineering.

The Virtual Reality Lab (VR-Lab) creates methods and concepts for a digital inspection of buildings and planning-oriented tools, supported by Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies.

The core equipment of the VR Lab includes VR and AR glasses, gesture-controlled touch tables and a VR wall. In addition, the laboratory is equipped with a VR treadmill, through which innovative possibilities for movement in VR can be examined. With the help of newly emerging VR technologies, such as the HTC-VIVE or the Hololens, BIM-based approaches are processed immersive and interactively and integrated into research projects. The technological progress of recent memory makes it possible to develop completely new ways of working for a BIM-based way of working in construction.

For example, topics such as the virtual planning of barriers for occupational safety, virtual inspection of a tunnel boring machine (TBM) or collaborative and interactive modeling of lines in tunnel construction have already been developed in the context of projects in the VR laboratory. The general activities in the VR-Lab therefore include the preparation of model-based content and the development of interaction methods.

Further information can be found on the website of the Chair of Computing in Engineering.