forces in motion

Munich. The foundation „Stiftung Maurer Söhne” awarded the PhD thesis of Klaus Sautter and the MSc thesis of Tom Hicks in the fields of structural dynamics and technical mechanics in summer 2023. The foundation Stiftung Maurer Söhne awards every year the most outstanding PhD, MSc and BSc theses in the field of technical dynamics.

In 2023 two excellent R&D works were awarded the prize foundation Stiftung Maurer Söhne of total 2.000 €.

Klaus Sautter received the prize money of 1.000 € for his PhD thesis „Modeling and Simulation of Flexible Protective Structures by Coupling Particle and Finite Element Methods“. The focal point of the thesis was the modelling and performance prediction of rockfall networks. The PhD thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Eng. Kai-Uwe Bletzinger of the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

Tom Hicks received the same prize money for his MSc thesis „Characterization of Dispersive Wave Propagation in Periodic Media of Different Symmetry Groups“. In this MSc thesis the dynamic characteristics of metamaterials was modelled and investigated. The MSc thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Eng. Gerhard Müller of TUM.

The prize winners were selected by the prize committee of the Department Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) of TUM School of Engineering and Design. The prizes were handed over on July 14 on the CEE Department Day.

Universities are obliged to focus on project-related research due to their limited budget. The industry commonly aims at product development. In contrast, basic research shall be free of development goals and independent of potential economic benefits. Therefore, the foundation Stiftung Maurer Söhne aims at supporting R&D projects at the interface of Civil and Mechanical Engineering.