Prof. Dr. Kurosch Thuro

Professorship

Engineering Geology

Academic Career and Research Areas

Prof. Thuro's research areas are in the field of underground mining (performance and wear forecasts for tunnel driving, nuclear waste disposal), deep geothermal energy (borehole stability, stress modeling, crack generation) and slope movements (design of early warning systems with geosensors, hazard prediction). For these purposes, he develops new test methods in the rock laboratory and leads them to standardization. He is a member of numerous specialist committees and editorial boards of leading specialist journals. As head of the Engineering Geology Section, he is also a board member of the German Society for Geotechnics DGGT and the International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment IAEG. Prof. Thuro has developed the curriculum for the Master's degree course in Engineering & Hydrogeology for over 20 years and has been its examination board chairman from the very beginning.

Prof. Thuro (*1962) studied geology at the Technical University of Munich, specializing in engineering and hydrogeology. He then worked as an assistant at TUM and obtained his doctorate in 1995 with a thesis on the drillability of rocks in conventional tunnel driving. In 1999 he moved to ETH Zurich, where he habilitated in 2002. In January 2004, he accepted an appointment at TUM.

Awards

  • Habilitation scholarship of the DFG (1999)
  • Leopold Müller Award of the Austrian Society for Geomechanics (1996)
  • Doctoral fellowship of the TUM "zur Förderung des künstlerischen und wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses" (1989-90)

Gamperl, M., Singer, J., Garcia-Londoño, C., Seiler, L., Castañeda, J., Cerón-Hernandez, D. & Thuro, K. (2023): Recommendations for Landslide Early Warning Systems in Informal Settlements Based on a Case Study in Medellín, Colombia. – Land 12, 1451, 22 p.

Abstract

Lehmann, G. Mayr, M., Käsling, H. & Thuro, K. (2023): Microwave pre-conditioning of granite and concrete and the implications on their geotechnical parameters. - International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences 164, 13 p.

Abstract

Stockinger, G., Thuro, K., Moeck, I. & Straubinger, R. (2022) The rock mass as the governing factor for successfully developing deep geothermal systems in Southern Germany. – Geomechanics and Tunnelling 15, pp. 37–47.

Abstract

Breuninger, T., Menschik, B., Demharter, A., Gamperl, M. & Thuro, K. (2021): Investigation of Critical Geotechnical, Petrological and Mineralogical Parameters for Landslides in Deeply Weathered Dunite Rock (Medellín, Colombia). - Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 18, 11141, 27 p.

Abstract

Thuro, K., Singer, J. Menschik, B., Breuninger, T. & Gamperl, M. (2020): Development of an early warning system for landslides in the tropical Andes (Medellín; Colombia). – Geomechanics and Tunnelling 13/1: 103-115. 

Abstract