Min Hu

I have a PhD in building technology and now work as a postdoc at the department of building technology. During these years, I’ve been engaged in research as well as teaching.

Teaching

During my years at Linnaeus University, I have taught courses in Construction Mechanics and Detail projecting – Building Construction at the bachelor’s level, and in the Finite Element Method at the master’s level. Every year, I also usually supervise degree projects in various subjects at both bachelor’s and master’s level.

Teaching in higher education to me means that you need double skills, that is, both what and how to teach. I strongly believe that a teacher is not a simple transmitter of established truths, but of conveying the joy of learning, of inspiring students to think critically about the teaching-learning process, and of creating an encouraging and supportive environment for students.

Research

My research is devoted to improve machine strength grading of structural timber. One of the most important properties that determine strength, stiffness and shape stability of sawn timber is fibre direction within it. My studies are therefore focused on fibre directions and local bending stiffness related to knots in sawn timber. The work has included laboratory investigations of local material directions by laser scanning as well as Computer tomography (CT) X-ray scanning, mathematical modeling for fibre directions of the interior of boards. The work also included three-dimensional (3D) finite element models of individual boards for the mechanical behavior, and analysis of mechanical response of boards based on experiments and based on the suggested models.