Structural Safety, Resilience and Climate Adaptation of Critical Infrastructure and Built Environment

The competencies encompass the development and implementation of advanced numerical simulation techniques aimed at predicting the behavior of dynamic physical processes in structures and components under various loads. This process utilizes both commercial and proprietary software specifically tailored for structural analysis and safety assessments.

Our focus includes developing methods for cities, communities, and industrial sites to adapt to the challenges posed by climate change. Vulnerability analyses employ analytical, numerical, and probabilistic approaches to quantify and qualify the resilience of buildings and infrastructures against extreme impacts, encompassing both human-made hazards (such as explosions and impacts) and natural hazards (including earthquakes, floods, heavy rainfall, and storms). The scope further extends to the design and conceptualization of protective measures and innovative solutions aimed at enhancing structural safety, alongside robust methodologies for assessing structural integrity.

Material modeling involves the comprehensive characterization of materials such as concrete, steel, masonry, timber, soil, and composites across static, quasi-static, and dynamic ranges, with particular attention to strain rate dependencies. The development of material models (equations of state) and keycards for the numerical simulation of construction materials is a core competency. The institute features a validated numerical simulation database, accessible through its own data facilities, which contains extensive information on a wide array of common materials. Additionally, the experimental equipment at Fraunhofer EMI offers a reliable foundation for the vulnerability assessment of structures and materials, enabling effective validation of numerical simulations.

In summary, these competencies are geared toward improving the safety, robustness, and resilience of built environments and critical infrastructures. They ensure effective responses to extreme conditions while facilitating advancements in product engineering and innovative numerical methods to address complex engineering challenges.