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Within the framework of the project a genderand diversity-oriented teaching evaluation and modern, media-supported blended learning approaches were used in order to achieve the intended goals. First research results of the literature and status quo analysis were already implemented and tested in newly designed teaching approaches, for example in a multidisciplinary introductory lecture of civil engineering at RWTH Aachen University.
Evaluation of fragility curves for a three-storey-reinforced-concrete mock-up of SMART 2013 project
(2016)
Engineers are of particular importance for the societies of tomorrow. The big social challenges society has to cope with in future, can only be mastered, if engineers link the development and innovation process closely with the requirements of people. As a result, in the frame of the innovation process engineers have to design and develop products for diverse users. Therefore, the consideration of diversity in this process is a core competence engineers should have. Implementing the consideration of diverse requirements into product design is also linked to the development of sustainable products and thus leads to social responsible research and development, the core concept formulated by the EU.
For this reason, future engineers should be educated to look at the technical perspectives of a problem embedded in the related questions within societies they are developing their artefacts for. As a result, the aim of teaching engineering should be to prepare engineers for these requirements and to draw attention to the diverse needs in a globalized world.
To match the competence profiles of future engineers to the global challenges and the resulting social responsibility, RWTH Aachen University, one of the leading technical universities in Germany, has established the bridging professorship “Gender and Diversity in Engineering” (GDI) which educates engineers with an interdisciplinary approach to expand engineering limits. The interdisciplinary teaching concept of the research group pursues an approach which imparts an application oriented Gender and Diversity expertise to future engineers. In the frame of an established teaching concept, which is a result of experiences and expertise of the research group, students gain theoretical knowledge about Gender and Diversity and learn how to transfer their knowledge into their later field of action.
In the frame of the conference the institutional approach will be presented as well as the teaching concept which will be introduced by concrete course examples.
This paper describes the procedure on the evaluation of the masonry chapter for the next generation of Eurocode 8, the European Standard for earthquake-resistant design. In CEN, TC 250/SC8, working group WG 1 has been established to support the subcommittee on the topic of masonry on both design of new structures (EN1998-1) and assessment of existing structures (EN1998-3). The aim is to elaborate suggestions for amendments which fit the current state of the art in masonry and earthquake-resistant design. Focus will be on modelling, simplified methods, linear-analysis (q-values, overstrength-values), nonlinear procedures, out-of-plane design as well as on clearer definition of limit states. Beside these, topics related to general material properties, reinforced masonry, confined masonry, mixed structures and non-structural infills will be covered too. This paper presents the preliminary work and results up to the submission date.
Future engineers are increasingly confronted with the so-called Megatrends which are the big social challenges society has to cope with. These Megatrends, such as “Silver Society”, “Globalization”, “Mobility” and “Female Shift” require an application-oriented perspective on Diversity especially in the engineering field. Therefore, it is necessary to enable future engineers not only to look at the technical perspectives of a problem, but also to be able to see the related questions within societies they are developing their artefacts for. The aim of teaching engineering should be to prepare engineers for these requirements and to draw attention to the diverse needs in a globalized world.
Bringing together technical knowledge and social competences which go beyond a mere training of the so-called “soft skills”, is a new approach followed at RWTH Aachen University, one of the leading technical universities in Germany. RWTH Aachen University has established the bridging professorship “Gender and Diversity in Engineering” (GDI) which educates engineers with an interdisciplinary approach to expand engineering limits. In the frame of a sustainable teaching concept the research group under the leadership of Prof. Carmen Leicht-Scholten has developed an approach which imparts a supplication-specific Gender and Diversity expertise to engineers. In workshops students gain theoretical knowledge about Gender and Diversity and learn how to transfer their knowledge in their special field of study and later work. To substantiate this, the course participants have to solve case studies from real life. The cases which are developed in collaboration with non-profit organizations and enterprises from economy rise the students to challenges which are inspired by professional life. Evaluation shows the success of this approach as well as an increasing demand for such teaching formats.
Multi-dimensional fragility analysis of a RC building with components using response surface method
(2017)
Conventional fragility curves describe the vulnerability of the main structure under external hazards. However, in complex structures such as nuclear power plants, the safety or the risk depends also on the components associated with a system. The classical fault tree analysis gives an overall view of the failure and contains several subsystems to the main event, however, the interactions in the subsystems are not well represented. In order to represent the interaction of the components, a method suggested by Cimellaro et al. (2006) using multidimensional performance limit state functions to obtain the system fragility curves is adopted. This approach gives the possibility of deriving the cumulative fragility taking into account the interaction of the response of different components. In this paper, this approach is used to evaluate seismic risk of a representative electrical building infrastructure, including the component, of a nuclear power plant. A simplified model of the structure, with nonlinear material behavior is employed for the analysis in Abaqus©. The input variables considered are the material parameters, boundary conditions and the seismic input. The variability of the seismic input is obtained from selected ground motion time histories of spectrum compatible synthetic ccelerograms. Unlike the usual Monte Carlo methods used for the probabilistic analysis of the structure, a computationally effective response surface method is used. This method reduces the computational effort of the calculations by reducing the required
number of samples.
The link between diversity and innovation is broadly discussed in the context of research and innovation processes. Many institutions and enterprises, specifically in commerce, have already tried to establish sustainable diversity management concepts, in order to increase the diversity of their workforce in addition to establishing a corporate culture of openness. Alongside the creation of a working place where different experiences and skills are valued equally, the entrepreneurial intention is to transfer diversity into economically relevant advantages. Taking into account the potential of diversity in research and innovation processes, the project “Diversity- and Innovation Management” was incorporated within a large interdisciplinary research Cluster. The project’s purpose was to study the context between diversity and innovation in research associations and to later develop a customised management concept into an interdisciplinary research Cluster on integrative production technology with full integration. The challenge of such research associations lays in an organisational structure which is often described as being decentralised. Researchers coming from different academic disciplines, while having diverse habits, conduct research on large scientific issues and challenges. In addition, these researchers are socialised in different institutions and university chairs. Theses differences in leadership styles, business cultures and organisational strategies, follow into their research team work. Taking a closer look into the management of human resources suggests that decentral organised recruitment processes, as well as allocation of human resources, lead to a lacking overview in regard to missing competencies, perspectives and backgrounds in research networks. These circumstances are comparable to big corporate groups. While developing a management concept for research associations, these characteristics must be considered. To ensure this, the project follows a human-centred approach, which considers top-down, as well as bottom-up perspectives. This paper presents the applied mixed-method approach in the scientific issue described above. In the frame of the Cluster of Excellence “Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries” research results based on quantitative, as well as qualitative studies, were presented as an application example. This paper provides a new perspective on the innovation and diversity context. Against the background of complex research organisations, the development approach of a management concept is particularly interesting.
Acknowledging that a diverse workforce could be a potential source of innovation, the current research deals with the fine details of why diversity management is central to achieving innovation in heterogeneous research groups and how this could be effectively realized in an organization. The types of heterogeneities addressed mainly include gender, qualification, academic discipline and intercultural perspectives. The type of organization being dealt with in this work is a complex association of research institutes at a technical university in Germany (RWTH Aachen University), namely a 'Cluster of Excellence', whereby several institutes of the university work collaboratively in different sub-projects. The 'Cluster of Excellence' is a part of the 'Excellence Initiative' of the German federal and state governments German Research Foundation (DFG) and German Council of Science and Humanities, with the ultimate aim of promoting cutting-edge research. To support interdisciplinary collaboration and thus the performance of the cluster, the development of a diversity and innovation management concept is presently in the conceptual phase and will be described in the frame of this paper. The 3-S-Diversity Model, composed of the three elements: skills, structure and strategy, serves as a basis for the development of the concept. The proposed concept consists of six phases; the first two phases lay the ground work by developing an understanding of the status quo on the forms of diversity in the Cluster of Excellence, the type of organizational structure of the member institutes and the varieties of specialist work cultures of the same. The third and the fourth phases build up on this foundation by means of qualitative and quantitative studies. While the third phase deals with the sensitization of the management level to the close connection between diversity and innovation; the need to manage them thereafter and find tailor-made methods of doing so, the fourth phase shall mainly focus on the mindset of the employees in this regard. The fifth phase shall consolidate the learnings and the ideas developed in the course of the first four phases into an implementable strategy. The ultimate phase shall be the implementation of this concept in the Cluster. The first three phases have been accomplished successfully and the preliminary results are already available.