Keynote Speakers

Jürgen Wacker, Prof. Dipl.-Ing.

  • Honorary Professor, University of Applied Science, Frankfurt/Main, Germany; Owner and Managing Director Wacker Ingenieure
  • Keynote Lecture: Wind Impact on Textile Structures

After studying Civil Engineering, Flow Mechanics at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, Jürgen was then employed by the same University in the Wind Engineering Division Special Research Group SFB 210, conducting research into wind related design criteria for buildings.

In 1992, he was promoted to manager of SFB 210 and founded Wacker Ingenieure in the same year.

As Honorary Professor at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, Jürgen keeps Wacker Ingenieure - Wind Engineering up to date with new scientific research and technologies. Over the years he has contributed to a large number of scientific publications and helped clients with the most complex problems. He takes great pride in investing in motivated employees and new technologies.

Keynote Lecture: Wind impact on textile structures

The objective of this lecture is to give a short overview with regard to wind impact on textile structures. Textile structures often show a complex geometry; hence, it is common practice to determine the wind loads acting on textile structures by means of appropriate wind tunnel tests. The state of the art of wind tunnel testing methodology is summarised. This includes both modern measurement techniques and most sophisticated data analysis methods, respectively. With regard to the dynamic response of textile structures to wind impact, methods will be presented which are based on the combination of time-dependent wind tunnel test results and the structural parameters of the structure. In case studies, the state of the art investigation of different wind load aspects is demonstrated. A short comparison between wind tunnel tests and numerical flow simulations (CFD (computational fluid dynamics), FSI (fluid structure interaction)) is given. Advantages and disadvantages of both procedures will be shown.

[ presentation: PDF ]