Brendan Nicholas Marais


Research interests

  • Wood protection
  • Wood degradation
  • Durability and service-life of wood and wood-based products
  • Moisture monitoring of wooden elements

Dissertation

  • Durability of Wood in Ground Contact: Modelling the Effect of Biotic and Abiotic Factors
  • Supervisor: PD Dr. Christian Brischke

  • Projects

    • HyLight - Energy-efficient production of complex-shaped, multifunctional and recyclable lightweight products made of wood and bioplastics using automatic injection-moulding machines
    • WoodLCC - Enabling robust and precise Life-Cycle-Costing (LCC) based on input from novel models for detailed service life performance specification for wooden components and buildings
    • CEMWOGEO - Cement coating of wood for geotechnical applications
    • CemSleeper - Cement coating of wood for railway applications
    • CLICK DESIGN - Delivering fingertip knowledge to enable service life performance specification of wood


    Teaching

    Supervision of student theses (for reasons of data protection law, the authors names are withheld)

    Master theses

    2021

  • The potential of detecting wood decay using photoacoustic imaging: a review
  • 2020

  • Impact of soil temperature on the decay rate of European beech wood

  • Bachelor theses

    2020

  • Studies on the effect of soil type on the decay rate of selected wood species
  • 2019

  • Impact of soil water-holding capacity and soil moisture content on decay rate of selected timbers

  • Project theses

    2021

  • Cement treatment of wood for geotechnical use - An electron microscopic analysis
  • 2020

  • The effect of a cement coating on European Beech and Norway Spruce wood - studies into fungal durability and brittleness

  • Publications