Whether energy-efficient vehicle drives, products in biomedical technology or devices in consumer electronics - every product is developed in cooperation with mechanical engineers. They take a holistic view of the development process - from needs analysis, conception and design to assembly and validation. This is also the case for the winners of the mechanical engineering award at TU Ilmenau: the Bachelor’s, Master’s and diploma students dealt with a wide range of topics and application areas in mechanical engineering and developed functional, resource-saving solutions for social challenges and interdisciplinary issues. In doing so, they worked closely with companies in the region or partner institutions of TU Ilmenau.
Biomechanical studies to analyze the gait of children with cerebral palsy
In cooperation with the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) in Lima, mechatronics student Maria Alejandra Guzman Alfaro worked on improving the therapy for children suffering from cerebral palsy (CP), an early childhood disorder that affects movement and balance. In her Master’s thesis in the Biomechatronics Group under the supervision of Prof. Harmut Witte, as part of a double master’s program with the PUCP, she conducted biomechanical studies on gait analysis in children with CP at the DRK Children’s Hospital in Siegen. Using inertial measurement units (IMU) - small devices that can measure movement - she recorded the movements of six children with CP before and after an intensive physiotherapy phase and compared them with those of six healthy children. She analyzed this movement data using a specially developed algorithm with regard to various movement parameters such as speed, step stability and posture. The results show that precise movement analysis using IMUs can help to understand and quantify the positive effects of physiotherapy in children with CP in detail. This may allow treatment approaches to be better tailored to the individual needs of children in the future.Additive manufacturing for the model railroad industry
Marina Bücker’s Master’s thesis in the Product and System Development Group was also multi-track in the truest sense of the word: In collaboration with Märklin Engineering GmbH, she investigated the possibilities of additive manufacturing for the model railroad industry. "In the world of model railways, every locomotive model consists of many individual parts that have to be assembled by hand," explains Prof. Stephan Husung. This is where Marina Bücker’s master’s thesis came in: In order to save time in model construction and to enable new creative freedom for technical functional assemblies, she investigated the potential of so-called Digital Light Processing (DLP), a 3D printing process that can achieve high resolutions. With this research, she laid the foundation for further innovations in the production of complex assemblies. For this achievement she was awarded this year’s mechanical engineering award.Haoze Wang’s award-winning master’s thesis was also written at the Product and System Development Group. After completing his bachelor’s degree at Qingdao University of Science and Technology (QUST) in China, he dealt with the practical topic of design principles in his final thesis for his master’s degree in mechanical engineering at TU Ilmenau. Representatives from Qingdao University were also present at the award ceremony to honor the outstanding results of this thesis. Jiekai Wang also studied at Qingdao University of Science and Technology before coming to TU Ilmenau for a Master’s degree and writing his award-winning thesis on the miniaturization of a confocal microscope at Prof. Eberhard Manske’s Precision Metrology Group.
Calibration of high-precision inclinometers
Jens Lang and Marvin Henkel wrote their theses in collaboration with regional companies: Mechatronics student Jens Lang wrote his Bachelor’s thesis in collaboration with SIOS Meßtechnik GmbH, a leading company in precision measurement technology, on the calibration of high-precision inclinometers. In his award-winning thesis, mechanical engineering student Marvin Henkel designed, implemented and characterized a setup for the production of alkylsilanized monolayers for microsystems technology in collaboration with 5microns GmbH.In total, the Friends of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering awarded nine students this year. The certificates were presented to them by Prof. Thomas Fröhlich, Chairman of the Association:
We congratulate this year’s award winners and wish them all the best for their future careers in companies or research institutions.
All award winners:
M.Sc. Marina BückerM.Sc. Maria Alejandra Guzman Alfaro
M.Sc. Carlos Gianpaul Rincon-Ruiz
M.Sc. Haoze Wang
M.Sc. Lukas Weyh
M.Sc. Jiekai Wang
B.Sc. Jens Lang
Dipl.-Ing. Marvin Henkel
Dipl.-Ing. Jasmin Ruprecht
