Fraunhofer-Insitute for High-Speed Dynamics, Ernst-Mach-Institut, EMI

The Fraunhofer EMI with 330 employees at three locations, investigates physical and technical processes under exceptional loads. It contributes to safety, reliability, resilience, and sustainability in society and the economy, particularly in the areas of defense, security, automotive, and aerospace. The core research areas include the protection of structural infrastructures against extreme loads such as explosions, earthquakes, floods, and heavy rainfall, as well as the numerical simulation of dynamic loading processes and the development of innovative protection concepts. This includes hazard and risk analyses as well as the resilience of structures under cascading effects and what-if scenarios.

In the field of safety, the focus is on protecting buildings and infrastructures against extreme loads. The expertise encompasses dynamic numerical simulations, material modeling, and structural design under high dynamic stress. Commercial and in-house software allows for the simulation of material and structural behavior from linear to nonlinear loading up to collapse, with extensive material testing facilities and large-scale experimental setups serving to validate these simulations.

The Structural and Blast Dynamics Group within the Department of Safety and Resilience of Technical Systems works on projects related to explosion hazards from terrorism and industrial accidents, including the definition of safety areas resulting from debris flight. Another research focus is the analysis of structural and critical infrastructures under extreme climatic stressors such as heavy rainfall, flooding, and storms. To this end, a digital software-based platform has been developed to assess the vulnerability of extensive building stocks and to apply protective measures to enhance resilience effectively.