101-0615-01L  Materials III

SemesterAutumn Semester 2017
LecturersR. J. Flatt, I. Burgert, P. Lura, H. Richner, F. Wittel
Periodicityyearly recurring course
Language of instructionGerman


AbstractIntroduction into the basic and practical knowledge of important building materials and testing methods.
ObjectiveIntroduction into the basic and practical knowledge of important building materials and testing methods.
Contento Introduction of material testing equipment, with various examples of experiments on metals (tensile behaviour, hardness, bending and impact loading).
o Theoretical background and practical aspects of concrete technology: mixture design, casting and setting; determination of mechanical properties.
o Properties of bricks and mortar: individual materials and the composite brickwork. Parameters like strength, Young’s modulus, water absorption and thermal conductivity are determined.
o Understanding the characteristic properties of wood: anisotropy, hygroscopic behaviour, shrinkage and swelling, and effect of size on strength. Introduction to test-methods for wood and wood-products.
o Introduction into the basics of scanning electron microscopy: practical exercises with the Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope (ESEM).
o Introduction to fundamentals of Finite Element Methods and their application in examples.
o Introduction to durability of building materials and building structures: assessment of potentials for detecting and locating corrosion of steel reinforcement in concrete.
Lecture notesFor each topic a script will be provided, that can be downloaded under Link