Dr. 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 have been made anonymous)

    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