Philip Bester van Niekerk


Research interests

  • Wood Durability
  • Service life modelling of timber
  • Performance-based design with timber
  • Hazard mapping
  • Carbon storage quantification

Projects

  • 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
  • ClickDesign - Delivering fingertip knowledge to enable service life performance specification of wood

Teaching

Supervision of student papers (for data protection reasons, the papers have been made anonymous)

Master’s theses

    2022

  • Survey of timber structures - Validation studies of a service life prediction tool
  • 2021

  • The potential of detecting wood decay using photoacoustic imaging: a review
  • Impact of micro-environmental temperature on wood decay induced by Basidiomycetes
  • 2020

  • The effect of different crack sizes on the material climate of wooden components

Project theses

    2021

  • Investigation of the splash water exposure of wooden facades
  • 2020

  • Evaluation of different scenarios for the accumulation of splash water on wood cladding and their effect on the material climate
  • Bachelor's theses

      2023

    • Development of wood moisture content in Norway spruce terrace elements - influence of slope, soil accumulation and water traps
    • 2021

    • Analysis of the influence of neighbouring vegetation on the risk of fungal decay in Norway spruce boards
    • Localised moistening of wood and subsequent inoculation of mycelium to determine the local loss of mass due to wood-destroying Basidiomycetes
    • 2020

    • Modelling the relationship between mass loss and elastomechanical properties of fungal decayed wood

    Publications