Dipl.-Ing. Valentine Troi
Biobased Materials
Department of Structural Engineering and Material Sciences
Technikerstraße 13
6020 Innsbruck
+43 (512) 507 63555
E-Mail
UIBK-Website Persönliche Website
The climate crisis and scarcity of raw materials are forcing us to rethink our current economic and energy system, which is based on fossil and mineral resources. Innovative bioeconomic concepts enable moving away from fossil resources as the basis of our products in favour of renewable and bio-based materials that are used sustainably and kept in the cycle for as long as possible. The focus on the regional and sustainable provision of raw materials (with a focus on agriculture, forestry and waste management) plays a major role. In this context, particular attention must be paid to the strongly varying quality of raw materials, which should be absorbed with cascading value chains. The development of appropriately adapted material technology solutions and the resulting product development for industrial sectors such as the construction industry and mobility is the core task of the interdisciplinary working group.
Investigating the suitability of hemp as a textile reinforcement in skis.
As part of this research area the substitution of fossil and mineral reinforcing fibres such as glass, basalt and carbon with plant fibres such as hemp and flax, as well as the increase of the plant content in the matrix, will be addressed. In the case of plant-based fibre reinforcement (long and short fibres, regenerated fibres), various semi-finished product characters (non-woven, woven, UD fabrics) are tested for their possible applications in combination with industrial production technologies (pultrusion, winding technique, hot pressing, pre-preg). In the area of matrix development for composite materials, plant-based thermosets based on vegetable oils such as linseed oil, but also possibilities with alternative, grown binders, e.g. based on plant or bacterial cellulose and mycelia, are being investigated.
Wood and wood-based materials exhibit complex material behaviour that is both time- and direction-dependent, and is influenced by environmental factors (temperature, moisture). To broaden and optimize the application of these materials for new fasteners and construction techniques, it is essential to understand the principles of their properties and to represent them accurately in models. This enables reliable predictions of component behaviour in real-world applications. Research in collaboration with the Timber Construction department thus involves applying modern experimental methods across various length scales under specified environmental conditions, complemented and enhanced by numerical simulations of the microstructure of the wood as well as of components and fasteners.
Wood and wood-based materials: (above) experimental characterisation of the mechanical properties and (below) modelling and simulation of the behaviour of wood and the interaction with fasteners.
Renewable raw materials require a holistic approach to their use and utilisation; in the best case, agricultural residues are used so that there is no competition in terms of land consumption for food production. Depending on their type and quality, these agricultural residues can be used for production processes with varying degrees of technical requirements. Changing cultivation and harvesting conditions as well as climatic extremes lead to increased fluctuations in quality, so that, similar to wood as an already established renewable raw material, classification models are being developed that enable efficient, quality-orientated and coordinated further processing.
Production and determination of the mechanical strength of hemp-based bricks.