FDB sponsorship prize awarded to students at Bochum University of Applied Sciences

Figure: FDB

Fachvereinigung Deutscher Betonfertigteilbau (FDB) sees it as its particular task to promote teaching. The FDB has a long history with the ‘Structural Engineering’ department at Bochum University of Applied Sciences with Professor Andrej Albert and lecturer Dirk Dörr, who teaches and supervises the precast project.

Now in its ninth year, the collaboration has reached a record number of participants: this winter semester, 30 students took the opportunity to present the results of their project work, which is developed in small groups in the precast concrete construction module, and have them assessed by a jury.

Both the high number of students and the standard of the work submitted, which reflects the sound training at Bochum University of Applied Sciences, are good news for the construction industry - ‘the next generation has what it takes’.

Group 5's well thought-out project - convincing and award-winning, from construction design to construction planning

On 23 January 2025, eight groups from Bochum University of Applied Sciences presented their project work for the winter semester 2024/2025. The participants in Group 5 - Kjell Ziegler, Lars Spierings, Marc-Andre Kolos and Yannick Loock - received the sponsorship award for their convincing presentation of their final thesis.

The jury was impressed by the project work, in which every detail, from the construction design to the creation of the construction schedule, was well thought out and of consistently high technical quality.

 

Description of some excerpts from the project work

The four students succeeded in presenting a well thought-out overall concept for the construction of a new hall: In line with the brief, they presented the jury with the design, the element planning for trusses, a sophisticated calculation, the assembly with selection of the appropriate crane, a mass determination and cost overview as well as a sophisticated construction schedule.

For all planning processes, the four award winners placed particular emphasis on the consistent cost-effectiveness of the hall, be it through the most even possible distribution of internal forces to optimise the use of materials or the optimisation of components through identical shapes and reinforcement guides. Important details such as the design of the gable beams and the fire walls were carefully designed in order to fulfil the functional requirements as well as the economic and fire protection specifications. To ensure an economical construction process, care was taken to ensure that as many construction processes as possible could run in parallel in order to reduce time and logistical costs; this minimised storage times for the prefabricated parts and efficiently bundled transports.

Award ceremony

The award ceremony took place directly after the colloquium. The prize money of 500 euros associated with the FDB Sponsorship Award was awarded to the winners in equal shares.

The FDB Sponsorship Award - a project close to the heart of the professional association

This year, the FDB once again supported the students at Bochum University of Applied Sciences with its specialist literature and FDB Managing Director Elisabeth Hierlein announced that the promotion of young talent will remain a project close to the trade association's heart in the future. The work that has been honoured with the FDB Sponsorship Award to date (since 2016) can be viewed on the FDB website at www.fdb-fertigteilbau.de>>fdb-angebote>>fdb-nachwuchsfoerderung-an-hochschulen>>fdb-foerderpreise-fuer-studierende/. Other universities in Germany are invited to establish or offer the FDB Sponsorship Award.

CONTACT:

Fachvereinigung

Deutscher Betonfertigteilbau e. V. (FDB)

Schlossallee 10

53179 Bonn/Germany

+49 228 95456-56

www.fdb-fertigteilbau.de