The Institute for structural mechanics at Ruhr University Bochum focuses on teaching and research in development of computational models for the prognoses of material and structural behaviour. The Institute is comprised of the following research groups:

  • Scale Bridging Modelling of Materials and Structures
  • Computational Intelligence and Structural Reliability
  • Computation Modelling in Tunnelling and Underground Structures

In particular, the goals of the research group Scale Bridging Modelling of Materials and Structures is the simulation based characterization and design of materials and structures considering physical mechanisms at various length and time scales. In the Research Group Computational Intelligence and Structural Reliability, a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Structural Reliability are employed to predict and optimize the structural behaviour of civil engineering structures.

Project Members

Prof. Dr. techn. Günther Meschke

Principal Investigator

Prof. Dr. techn. Günther Meschke is the Head of the Institute for Structural Mechanics of the Ruhr University Bochum and coordinator of the SFB 837 as well as of the Research Department “Subsurface Modeling & Engineering”. Prof. Meschke is Member of the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts, the Academia Europaea, an associate member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a member of the Austrian Science Board. He is the author of over 370 scientific publications.

Focus of his research is computational structural mechanics with an emphasis on multifield and multiscale models for porous and fiber-reinforced materials, numerical simulation models for underground construction (tunneling, geothermal energy systems), and lifetime-oriented analysis of structures.

Dr.-Ing. Jithender Jaswant Timothy

Principal Investigator

Dr. Jithender J. Timothy is a Research Group Leader at the Centre for Building Materials, TU Munich. His research interests are model-based characterization and design of materials using scale-bridging computational methods.

He received a Master degree and a Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) with distinction in Computational Engineering from Ruhr University Bochum in 2010 and 2016 respectively. His doctoral dissertation was awarded the Dr. Heinrich-Kost Prize for developing a new paradigm in the multiscale characterization of disordered porous materials. From 2017 - 2021 he led research group ‘Scale-Bridging Modelling of Materials and Structures’ at the institute for structural mechanics, Ruhr University Bochum.

Thi Truc Giao Vu, M.Sc.

Research Associate

Giao Vu has completed her Master in Computational Engineering with distinction from Ruhr University Bochum in 2019. In the Coda project, her role is to develop a multiscale model for concrete damage that takes into account the influence of the microstructure. At a later stage of the project, she is responsible for the classification of damage levels and Coda signals using machine learning.