AZH | Aachener Center for Timber Engineering Research (KNB)

A major challenge facing society is dealing with climate change and climate protection and therefore avoiding carbon dioxide emissions and storing carbon dioxide. The material binding of CO2 in wood products makes a significant contribution to this. Another challenge is to use the available and largely finite resources efficiently and sparingly. Finite resources can be replaced by wood as a renewable, energy-efficient, workable and therefore sustainable material. The use of wood in the construction industry has increased continuously in recent years and will continue to do so, as the development of the timber construction quota shows. The amendment of the state building regulations in favour of timber construction has now made multi-storey buildings up to high-rise buildings possible. In other European countries, high-rise buildings with up to 24 storeys are already being built using timber construction. This increases the need for application-oriented research, especially on the part of small and medium-sized companies. Due to scattering and complex natural material properties, timber construction research requires not only analytical and numerical solution approaches but also validation through experimental investigations on a component scale. For this reason, the establishment of a new extensively equipped timber construction laboratory, together with the necessary workshops and climatic rooms, is intended to create a centre for timber engineering research that was previously lacking in NRW and north-west Germany. Regional and supraregional timber construction companies and suppliers will benefit from the resulting strengthening of innovative capacity and the increase in implementation-orientated research, with the corresponding positive economic effects. As the FH Aachen buildings do not have the necessary capacity to accommodate or expand the research laboratories, a new building is required.

The location at the BGZ Simmerath of the Aachen Chamber of Crafts provides very good conditions with regard to technology transfer, access for SMEs to the research facility and personnel recruitment. Furthermore, economic impulses are expected for the structurally weak Eifel region, which is characterised by forestry and the timber industry.