The award ceremony for the Bavarian Student Associations’ University Prize took place once again at the Oskar von Miller Forum in Munich. A total of 24 graduates from six Bavarian universities had submitted their Bachelor’s and Master’s theses.
Tanja Böhm was awarded first prize and prize money of 3,000 euros for her Master’s thesis entitled ‘Moisture behaviour of timber-concrete composite floors made of cross-laminated timber with notches and different surface treatments’. The thesis was completed at OTH Regensburg and focuses on sustainable hybrid construction methods in timber and concrete building.
An important contribution to sustainable construction
Wood-concrete composite floors are regarded as promising structures for resource-efficient construction, as they combine the advantages of both building materials: high load-bearing capacity and stiffness whilst reducing material usage. At the same time, these systems are sensitive to the effects of moisture, particularly during the construction phase.
In her award-winning thesis, Tanja Böhm developed an experimental setup using test specimens that closely resemble real-world conditions and systematically investigated the influence of different surface treatments on moisture ingress into cross-laminated timber. The results provide important insights into the moisture behaviour of wood-concrete composite systems and make a valuable contribution to the further development of sustainable construction methods. Tanja Böhm was also recently awarded the Science Award by the Association of Friends of OTH Regensburg e.V. for her work.
Third place also went to OTH Regensburg
Magdalena Aicher received third prize and prize money of 1,000 euros for her bachelor’s thesis ‘Comparison of different calculation methods for pile cap slabs’.
In her thesis, she analysed different calculation methods for pile foundations, including planar and spatial truss models as well as numerical calculations. The investigations showed that three-dimensional truss models represent the actual load-bearing structure with particular precision, but at the same time require a significant amount of modelling effort. With regard to construction practice, Magdalena Aicher was able to demonstrate that, in many cases, a two-dimensional structural analysis is sufficient and, at the same time, economically viable.
The Faculty of Civil Engineering warmly congratulates Tanja Böhm and Magdalena Aicher on these outstanding awards and is delighted that the high academic quality of the research carried out at OTH Regensburg has been recognised.
