Completion of the Forschungskolleg Verbund.NRW: Composites in the Construction Industry - from Resource Efficiency to Validated Sustainability
After eight years of intensive research and collaboration between the RWTH Aachen University and the FH Münster, the interdisciplinary research program Verbund.NRW is coming to an end. Within this framework, doctoral students worked together with practitioners to investigate the sustainable, resource-efficient and circular use of composite materials in the construction industry. A central concern was to close material cycles in the construction industry and to rethink existing linear economic patterns.
The final event of the program took place on November 26, 2024, at the Super C of the RWTH Aachen University. As part of the final symposium, interdisciplinary presentations by the doctoral students and keynote speakers from the research field addressed three key topics:
- Ecological and economic evaluation: instruments to evaluate and improving a sustainable circular economy in the construction industry.
- Transformation processes in the context of sustainability: effects of new products using recycled materials and innovative processes on efficiency and sustainability in companies.
- Handling carbon fibres and fibre-reinforced concrete in the construction industry: developments and challenges in the use of advanced materials in construction.
The college has provided significant impulses for the future development of sustainable solutions in the construction industry. The contacts made, as well as the exchange of ideas and fruitful cooperations will lead to further profitable collaborations between science and practice in the future. Thanks to their interdisciplinary knowledge, the alumni of the program will be able to successfully tackle key challenges in the context of the circular economy and a sustainable transformation of the construction industry.
The Verbund.NRW was coordinated by the Thermoprocesses and Emission Control in Waste Management and Recycling Teaching and Research Unit and ran for two funding phases from September 2016 until the end of 2024. Doctoral students from the fields of engineering, construction and process engineering, environmental sciences, economics and sociology were involved.
www.verbund-nrw.de
