Prof. Dr.-Ing. Albrecht Gilka-Bötzow

Main topics

• Sustainability of building materials
• Concrete technology
• Lightweight and foam concrete
• Structural damage
• Building physics of materials

Career

Double degree in civil engineering at TU Dresden and the University of Trento. Doctorate in 2016 at the Institute for Materials in Construction at TU Darmstadt, senior research associate there until 2021. 2019 Head of a precast plant. 2020 Appointed Professor of Building Materials Science at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences. Also active as an R&D project developer and expert.

Research project

(Selection, projects with significant participation)

• Residue-free recyclable sandwich element made of non-combustible, purely mineral materials - CO2 avoidance and CO2 sequestration in concrete practice - "|2CO2|sandwich"
  (2 a, Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt - DBU)
• CO2 avoidance in cement and concrete production through dual closed-loop recycling
  (3 a, Dres. Edith und Klaus Dyckerhoff-Stiftung)
• Lightweight concrete construction with LAC+: Thermally insulating ultra-lightweight concrete building envelope with integrated heavy-duty lightweight steel supporting structure
  (2 a, AiF, ZIM)
• ETA-Fabrik: Energy-efficient factory for interdisciplinary technology and application research
  (5 a, BMWi: 5th Energy Research Program)
• Competition entry by TU Darmstadt "Plus-Energie-Haus" BMVI: Planning competition PlusEnergyHouse with e-mobility
  (ZukunftBau)

Publications

• ORCID
• ResearchGate

Suggested topics for theses

(Status 04/22)

• Concrete for novel reinforcements with low pH value
• Energetic monitoring of a non-residential building made of novel precast elements (made of foam concrete)
• Isothermal and adeabatic reaction calorimetry for measuring the reactivity of cement or alternative binders (construction of a reaction calorimeter)
• Clay as a load-bearing building material in RC wood-concrete formwork blocks
• Lightly compacting concrete with high proportions of unclassified concrete rubble
• Mechanical properties of concretes with high proportions of unclassified concrete rubble
• Use of image processing techniques to determine the air void characteristics in hardened concrete
• Research on: Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by repairing single-family houses
• Self-compacting white concrete without white cement for FT production
• Comparison of measurement methods for determining the air content in fresh lightweight concrete
• Comparison of measurement methods for determining the water content in fresh concrete
• Comparison of non-destructive methods for determining the mechanical properties of hardened concrete
• Research on: yield stress calculated out of the mini slump flow

The topics mentioned are only approximate areas of work and are discussed together. I then work out a clear and adapted task. The work below can serve as inspiration.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Completed theses

(at the h_da)

• Anja Ohling (Master), 2021: Ecological sustainability assessment of a novel prefabricated construction method using the example of a concrete single-family house settlement
• Jana Ott (Master), 2021: Possibilities and potentials for pH reduction in concrete
• Ranek Blumrich (Master), 2021: Concrete reinforced with reused plastic fibers
• Eva Hamelmann (Bachelor), 2021: Methodical exemplary development of a self-compacting lightweight concrete
• Alexander Münch (Bachelor), 2021: Self-compacting concrete based on unclassified recycled aggregate
• Lavinia Lorenz (Master), 2021: Crack-bridging foils in concretes with a high water penetration resistance: Material-technological and construction-related classification (Sponsorship award of the Hessian construction industry, 2021, 2nd place, category civil engineering)
• Safiullah Azimi (Master), 2021: Ultra-lightweight lightweight concrete with foam-modified binder matrix as stiffening filler material in a steel plate structure.
• Sven Böhm (Bachelor), 2021: Development of a durable recycled concrete with maximized recycled sand content: Testing and modelling of durability using standard tests (Dyckerhoff Sponsorship Award 2022)