The interdisciplinary Research Unit of Building Materials aims to provide the construction industry with new knowledge and tools to meet the challenges of tomorrow, while training the next generation of engineers in the field of building materials science and materials technology. Challenges include optimising the use of raw materials (e.g. minimising CO2 emissions), increasing the use of recycled materials (e.g. industrial, construction and demolition waste), developing efficient and novel characterisation methods to integrate locally sourced materials/waste materials into construction processes and supporting new application methods (e.g. 3D printing). The basis of our research is based on material properties, from fresh to setting properties of concrete and other building materials (e.g. mixing, flow, hardness, durability). In parallel, we focus on construction techniques (examples: Screed, novel geometries enabled by the use of UHPC) and related areas with similar underlying sciences such as biology (e.g. viscoelastic fluids) and fire safety (e.g. human evacuation modelling).

We are an international and diverse team of people from different backgrounds working on different types of materials (e.g. ceramics, wood, metallic materials, polymers, gels) in civil engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical industry and materials science. We collaborate across academia, within TU Wien and with other international universities as well as with industry and public organisations.