On the afternoon of the introductory day, students were able to learn about the load-bearing behavior of different bridge designs in a playful way. After a brief introduction to different bridge types, where initial technical terms such as span, slenderness, longitudinal section, cross-section, etc. were briefly explained, bridge models were built using the following materials:

Macaroni and spaghetti
Marshmallows
Wooden building blocks
String
Adhesive tape
Craft cardboard

The approximately 25 students divided into six groups, and each group designed and built an individual supporting structure. Once the bridge models were complete, they were weighed to estimate the amount of material used. The strength was then measured in a test frame. Some of the bridge models were so stable that the test frame's dial gauge was not sufficient to measure the load at which the bridge would fail. At this point, physical effort was required. From 500 N to 900 N, the students' own weight had to be used to help test the load-bearing capacity of the bridges during the load tests.

During the tests, the bridges exhibited very different behaviors. For example, some bridges failed brittlely. Other bridges failed ductilely with remarkable warning behavior. In addition to these terms, which may have been new to the students, terms such as “basic state of load-bearing capacity” and “basic state of serviceability” were introduced into the students' vocabulary for the first time.

In addition to building the bridge models, the quickest participants had the opportunity to use a remote-controlled robot to explore damage to a structure. This was, of course, very exciting.

All participants eagerly followed the measurements until the end. The afternoon was a great opportunity to get to know each other in a pleasant atmosphere. Afterwards, there was the opportunity to take part in a barbecue on the university grounds. In addition to the marshmallows, it was then possible to see if there was still room in the stomach for something from the grill. 😉

We wish all prospective civil engineers a great start to the semester and hope that they approach the new semester with lots of motivation and enthusiasm.

In September, two of our employees, Cleo Bindereif and Carlos Paz, each gave a presentation at the D-A-CH Conference 2025 in Vienna, Austria.
Both presented research findings in their presentations. In his presentation “Identification of Modal Parameters of a Test Bridge under a Moving Mass,” Carlos Paz reported on the results of several measurement campaigns on a test bridge. In her presentation “Numerical Modeling of Wood Connections with Vibration-Damping Effect through Energy Dissipation,” Cleo Bindereif presented the current status of the HochHinaus research project. 
We would like to thank the entire organization team and all participants for the wonderful conference and especially for the impressive conference dinner at the Natural History Museum!

On July 18, 2025, we welcomed companies, students, and employees to the Faculty of Agriculture, Construction, and Environment as part of the “Resume 2025 BAU UMWELT AGRAR” event. 
This event gave us our first opportunity to look back on what we have achieved in recent months and ahead to our plans for the near future. The event was organized entirely by the civil engineering program. In the historic lecture hall, Prof. Volkmar Zabel, Vice Dean, welcomed all guests and raised a toast to the new faculty name, “Faculty of Agriculture, Construction, and Environment.” 
Afterwards, several master's students were awarded BIM certificates. These were presented by Stefan Ulbrich, Chairman of the Digitalization/BIM Committee of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Chamber of Engineers, and Dr. Gesa Haroske, President of the Chamber of Engineers. 
After the opening ceremony, the individual departments of the faculty presented themselves at several locations on campus. Guests were introduced to various teaching and research projects, giving them an insight into the work being done. This sparked conversations and exchanges of ideas.
The event ended with delicious food from the grill in beautiful weather. All in all, it was a successful start for all of us, and we will definitely repeat it next year – with a different professorship hosting the event.      

At the beginning of July, two of our collaborators, Lisa Schwegmann and Anno Dederichs, held presentations at the EVACES 2025 in Porto, Portugal, in which they presented their research on the dynamic monitoring of civil infrastructure. Anno Dederichs held a presentation on “Evaluating mode tracking algorithms through AOMA outcome simulation framework”, discussing the challenges, limits, and need for future research into Mode Tracking. Lisa Schwegmann’s presentation “Numerical Considerations in Context of Stochastic Subspace-Based Fault Detection Test” focused on correctly estimating the matrix rank in the covariance-based Stochastic Subspace Identification algorithm for damage detection.

We wish to thank the organisers and all the delegates for an interesting and nice conference.

We were there. Together with other colleagues from the department and the faculty, we took part in this year's company run as the ‘dynamic eight-footer’ team. Together we ran 4x 3500m in a relay through Rostock's city harbour. It was a great event that we would like to take part in again next year.

Project week. We used this week to gather practical impressions with our students. This year, we travelled to Weimar, Erfurt and Jena.

Among other things, we visited the N3 construction site of the Goldbeck company. N3 Engine Overhaul Services is responsible for the maintenance, production and cleaning of aircraft engines. The existing buildings are being extended by a further hall and a technical building. Goldbeck is an expert in the field of hall and industrial construction. It is particularly challenging to organise the construction work during ongoing production, which requires logistical and constructional excellence.

In Jena, we also marvelled at the construction site of the ZEISS high-tech location and the so-called ‘Campus Inselplatz’ in Jena. ZEISS AG is currently constructing a building on the ZEISS construction site, in which all development units and a large part of the local production and administration departments will be located. The shell construction work is being carried out by the company RiedelBau, which is also responsible for the shell construction of our new Ulmicum. On the Inselplatz in Jena, a modern, new university campus has been under construction since mid-March 2020 in the immediate vicinity of the university's main building. The Institute of Psychology will be located here, as will the Faculty of Computer Science and Mathematics. A new branch library is also being built at this location.

We were also able to gain an overview of the Bauhaus University's testing centre in Weimar. There, we were shown and explained many exciting projects, including how construction elements are tested for a wide variety of load cases. Of course, we also had to visit the historic and world-famous Bauhaus University. We were given a guided tour of the premises and were able to experience how wonderful it is to study within these walls.

However, a special highlight for all of us was the visit to Erfurt Cathedral. The head of the Episcopal Building Office and master builder of the cathedral led us through Erfurt Cathedral and up to the Gloriosa belfry. Our professor Volkmar Zabel has also been involved in work at Erfurt Cathedral in the past.

Culturally, our students were treated to a visit to the German National Theatre in Weimar. The play ‘John Lennon’ gave a wonderful insight into the life of the musician and took us on a fantastic musical journey through time.

Through this study trip, our students were able to personally experience how very different living and working environments can develop and exist side by side in a relatively small space between tradition, present and future. The construction sites present engineers with very different challenges and therefore offered a great insight into the diversity of civil engineering. To summarise, this excursion was an exciting insight and therefore a great success.

Today we rang in the end of the working day together with all BLU employees at the barbecue. We enjoyed the good weather together with delicious food.

At last! We have a new tea kitchen. We inaugurated it together today with an international lunch.

This week, we travelled to the beautiful mustard town of Bautzen and took part in a major measurement campaign on the IDA-KI research bridge with our shaker and acceleration sensors. After recording the reference condition, the bridge was statically loaded at different load levels on the second day. The highlight followed on day three with the severing of some tendons.

Further information on the project can be found at: https://tu-dresden.de/bu/bauingenieurwesen/imb/das-institut/news/45-m-lange-versuchsbruecke-website-zum-openlab-online