Construction Materials for Professionals
With this course, you will gain in-depth and applied knowledge of modern construction materials, their properties, and how they influence performance, sustainability, and service life in technical products. You will learn how to analyse materials from microstructure to finished construction and acquire tools to make well-founded decisions in real-world engineering and industrial contexts.
Target group
Construction Materials for Professionals is an advanced-level course aimed at those who work professionally in engineering, product development, or design and who wish to deepen their understanding of material properties and how these affect construction, product life cycles, and environmental impact.
The course is intended for practicing engineers, designers, materials engineers, technical specialists, and others with a relevant academic degree or equivalent professional experience within engineering and materials-related fields.
Content
During the course, you will deepen your knowledge of advanced construction materials and their behaviour in technical applications. Key course components include:
Advanced Materials Science
- Overview of advanced construction materials, their classification, and fields of application.
- Overview of properties such as anisotropy, elasticity, plasticity, viscoelasticity, damage mechanisms, fracture behaviour, crystal structures, and the properties of the constituent phases of composite materials.
- Micromechanical experimental material characterisation and modelling methods.
- Correlation between microstructure and macroscopic properties.
Computational methods in materials science
- Multiscale modelling and simulation techniques across different length scales.
- Microscale modelling of heterogeneous structures using homogenisation, representative volume elements (RVEs), unit cells, and finite element methods.
After completing the course, the student will be able to:
- Describe advanced construction materials, their properties, and applications, and critically discuss their current and potential use in industry.
- Explain developments in materials science and the importance of representative models for mechanical behaviour across different length scales.
- Apply appropriate constitutive models using a multiscale analytical approach for characterisation, analysis, and design of materials in technical applications.
- Assess the impact of material choices on product life cycle and environmental performance.
- Use computational methods for multiscale modelling to progress from material and structure to final product.
- Create stations, programs, and robot simulations in ABB RobotStudio
Practical information
The course combines lectures, assignments, and a project in which you work with real-world problem formulations. Certain elements are compulsory and require active participation, such as the project introduction and final project presentation.
Assessment is conducted continuously through assignments and an individual project that concludes with an oral presentation. The grading scale is Fail or Pass.
Language of instruction: English
Schedule Spring 2026
10/4, 10.00 -12.00, online, mandatory: Introduction Lecture with project description
10/4, 13.00 -15.00, online, mandatory: Lecture - Classification, industrial applications and advanced properties and Microstructural Characterization
17/4, 10.00 -12.00, onsite, mandatory: Laboratory - Microscopy + Bending testing
17/4, 13.00 -15.00, onsite, mandatory: Laboratory - Microscopy + Bending testing
23/4, 10.00 -12.00, online, mandatory: Lecture - Advanced Materials: Anisotropy, elasticity and plasticity
29/4, 10.00 -12.00, online, mandatory: Lecture - Multiscale modeling and homogenization techniques
7/5, 10.00 -12.00, online, mandatory: Lecture - Material and Environment, choosing material for applications
19/5, 10.00 -12.00, onsite/online, mandatory: Workshop - Computational methods and simulation vs Experimental results - assignments + project work related
19/5, 13.00 -15.00, onsite/online, mandatory: Workshop - Computational methods and simulation vs Experimental results - assignments + project work related
28/5, 10.00 - 12.00, onsite, mandatory: Final Seminar - Oral presentation of your individual project and final feedback session
28/5, 13.00 - 15.00, onsite, mandatory: Final Seminar - Oral presentation of your individual project and final feedback session
Entry requirements
The basic eligibility requirement for this course is a bachelor’s degree. Applicants with equivalent professional experience are also welcome to apply. Two years of relevant work experience are considered equivalent to one year of university studies at bachelor’s level.
The course awards 5 ECTS credits and is free of charge for participants, funded by the Knowledge Foundation (KK-stiftelsen).
This course is developed within the project Smart Industry phase 2 and funded by the Swedish Knowledge Foundation (KK-stiftelsen). It is free of charge for you.
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