Tower & Parabolic Trough plants are the most common plants worldwide. ECILIMP Termosolar has developed a new generation of cleaning tools for CSP plants during the Horizon2020 MinWaterCSP project (Minimized Water Consumption in CSP plants). The EU funded project solution has been entirely developed in Spain and tested both in Spain and Morocco.

A new building material developed at Empa is about to be launched on the market: "memory-steel" can not only be used to reinforce new, but also existing concrete structures. When the material is heated (one-time), prestressing occurs automatically. The Empa spin-off re-fer AG is now presenting the material with shape memory in a series of lectures.

When bridges, dam walls and concrete foundations form cracks, AAR is often the culprit: the alkali-aggregate reaction. It causes the concrete to swell and renders renovations or even reconstructions necessary. A project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and coordinated by Empa is studying the “concrete disease”.

The Cluster of Excellence “Intergrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture” at the University of Stuttgart aims to harness the full potential of digital technologies in order to rethink design and construction, and enable groundbreaking innovations for the building sector through a systematic, holistic and integrative computational approach.

Wood is becoming increasingly popular as a sustainable building material. At the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (TUK), the team led by Assistant Professor Dr Christopher Robeller has developed software that calculates how, for example, complex wooden building parts can best be assembled from individual parts, similar to a puzzle. A milling machine manufactures the parts according to these specifications. They only have to be assembled afterwards. What is special: Only wood is used, also connecting elements are made of natural material. This is how the researchers recently built a dome. Construction companies could use the technology by means of apps to build quickly and sustainably.

Wie lassen sich negative Auswirkungen von Baustellen in Innenstädten reduzieren? Mit diesem Thema hat sich Prof. Dr. Benjamin Bierwirth von der Hochschule RheinMain im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts „Construction Impact Guide“ (CIG) beschäftigt und ein Wirkmodell entwickelt.

NSF advisory committee assesses ongoing transformation of our increasingly urban planet

Better thermal insulation means lower heating costs - but this should not be at the expense of exciting architecture. A new type of brick filled with aerogel could make thin and highly insulating walls possible in the future - without any additional insulation layer.

Materials scientists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, develop smart windows for controlled shading and solar thermal energy harvesting

The Cooperative Research Project FLEX-G started on June 1, 2017 under the federal construction technology initiative named ENERGIEWENDEBAUEN funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (FR 03ET1470A). The main goal of the research project is to investigate technologies for the manufacturing of translucent and transparent membrane roof and façade elements with integrated optoelectronic components. The focus lies on a switchable total energy transmittance (often referred to as the solar factor or solar heat gain and “g-value” in Europe) and on flexible solar cell integration to significantly contribute to both energy saving and power generation in buildings.