Prof. Dr. Dirk Lowke
Academic Career and Research Areas
Prof Dirk Lowke is an expert in materials and digital fabrication in construction. His research addresses questions such as what the digital and sustainable construction of tomorrow will look like. The focus is on digital technologies and resource efficiency in the context of the construction and maintenance of buildings made of mineral materials. This includes 3D printing with concrete and earth, the ecological optimisation of materials, their durability, the circularity of materials and components, and the use of mobile robotics.
Prof Dirk Lowke studied civil engineering at the TU Cottbus and then obtained his doctorate at the TU Munich. In 2016, he was a research scholar at the University of California Berkeley, where he conducted research into the 3D printing of cement-based materials. From 2017 to 2023, he headed the Department of Building Materials at the iBMB at TU Braunschweig and was a member of the board of the Braunschweig Materials Testing Institute. Dirk Lowke has been a professor in the Department of Materials Engineering at TU Munich since 2023.
Awards
- Member of the Braunschweig Scientific Society (2022 - 2023)
- Best Paper Award Digital Concrete (2022)
- Best Paper Award FRPRCS Symposium (2019)
- AWARD-WINNING PROJECT IN MATERIALS RESEARCH of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, "Research into the nanomaterial UHPC" (2015)
- GEORG BURG PRIZE for the outstanding dissertation (2014)
Key Publications
D. Lowke, “Thixotropy of SCC - A model describing the effect of particle packing and superplasticizer adsorption on thixotropic structural build-up of the mortar phase based on interparticle interactions”, Cement and Concrete Research, vol. 104, no. 2, pp. 94-104, 2018.
AbstractD. Lowke, C. Gehlen, “The zeta potential of cement and additions in cementitious suspensions with high solid fraction”, Cement and Concrete Research, vol. 95, pp. 195-204, 2017.
AbstractNicia, D.; Jakob, C.; Jansen, D.; Mazanec, O; Dengler, J.; Neubauer, J.; Lowke, D. Thixotropy of superplasticized cement pastes – Underlying mechanisms considering the PCE molecular structure, interparticle interactions and hydration kinetics, Cement and Concrete Research. 2023.
AbstractRoussel, N.; Lowke, D. (Eds.): Digital Fabrication with Cement-Based Materials. State-of-the-Art Report of the RILEM TC 276-DFC. Springer International Publishing, 1st ed. 2022.
AbstractD. Lowke, E. Dini, A. Perrot, D. Weger, C. Gehlen, B. Dillenburger, “Particle-bed 3D printing in concrete construction – possibilities and challenges,” Cement and Concrete Research, vol. 112, pp. 50-65, 2018.
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