Award for experimentally validated simulation tool of hand-operated rammer and soil

Munich. The foundation „Stiftung Maurer Söhne” awarded the BSc thesis of  Katharina Schmucker in the fields of structural dynamics and technical mechanics in summer 2026. The foundation Stiftung Maurer Söhne awards every year the most outstanding PhD, MSc and BSc theses in the field of technical dynamics.

In 2026 excellent R&D works of students of the Technical University (TU) of  Munich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich are awarded the prize foundation Stiftung Maurer Söhne of total 2,000 €.

Katharina Schmucker of TU Munich received the prize money of 1,000 € for here B. Sc. thesis „Optimization of a simulation tool of hand-operated rammer and soil“. Katharina Schmucker further developed a spring damper simulation model describing both the rammer and soil dynamics and validated the simulation tool with measurement data. The B. Sc. thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Eng. Roberto Cudmani, M. Sc. Florian Nießl und Dr. Eng. Stylianos Chrisopoulos of the Chair of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Rock Mechanics and Tunnelling of the TU Munich.

The prize winner was selected by the prize committee of the Department Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) of TU Munich School of Engineering and  Design. The prize was handed over on July 10 during the CEE Department Day; the official award ceremony in Zurich will take place in December.

Universities are obliged to focus on project-related research due to their limited budget. The industry commonly aims at product development. In contrast, basic research shall be free of development goals and independent of potential economic benefits. Therefore, the foundation Stiftung Maurer Söhne aims at supporting R&D projects at the interface of civil and mechanical engineering.