Open Access

To ascertain corrosion categories in German coastal regions (North Sea and Baltic Sea), exposure testing was conducted at seven locations. Atmospheric corrosion is determined at one location by exposing sample sheets of various materials. In accordance with DIN EN ISO 9226, sheets made of steel, zinc, copper, and aluminum are exposed. The atmospheric corrosion is determined in accordance with DIN EN ISO 9223, based on the mass loss of the sample sheets after one year of exposure. The corrosiveness at each location must be determined for each material and considered individually. This presentation intends to offer an overview regarding the levels of corrosivity present within German coastal regions. Furthermore, the objective of this presentation is to stimulate discussion about future developments within the domain of maritime corrosion protection.

The MBLabs consortium comprises various organizations that operate testing facilities encompassing a broad spectrum of tests relevant to the construction sector, particularly building envelopes. In the future, additional testing facilities will join the METABUILDING platform to offer their services. These services will be integrated in the MBLabs Open Innovation Test Bed and accessible via the METABUILDING platform. The METABUILDING platform is operated by the METABUILDING association. In Task 8.4 & 8.5 the Quality Assurance system of the MBLabs OITB was developed. The presentation gives an overview regarding the last activities performed after development of this system in the last year of project execution.

Obtaining higher levels of information on damage identification in Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) requires physics-based methods, which include structural models. Environmental effects are the most important source of variability in SHM data and must be correctly identified to avoid false attribution to damage. However, the interpretation of environmental effects in published SHM case-studies is often speculative, incomplete, or contradictory – the same observation (e.g., frequency decrease with temperature) is attributed to different mechanisms without systematic reasoning. Existing reviews catalog observations, but not the underlying physical mechanisms in a systematic way. This contribution addresses this gap by systematically cataloging environmental cause-and-effect mechanisms and their diagnostic signatures. We organize mechanisms by the physical chain linking environmental inputs to structural response: through material property changes (stiffness, density), geometric changes (thermal expansion), boundary condition modifications (gap opening, bearing behavior), or induced loading effects (wind). Analysis of case-studies from bridges, buildings, and towers reveals that often multiple mechanisms produce similar responses, necessitating the testing of different hypotheses rather than assuming a single cause. This catalog enables more rigorous interpretation of environmental variability, improving the quality of physics-based SHM.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of chemicals with fluorinated carbon chains, including perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Extensive industrial use, particularly in Teflon production, has led to widespread environmental contamination. PFAS are highly persistent, bioaccumulate, and are now found globally in water, soil, and living organisms. Due to their toxicity, PFOA and related compounds were listed as persistent organic pollutants under the Stockholm Convention in 2019, prompting increased monitoring in water sources. According to the current state of the art, PFAS are predominantly analyzed using chromatography techniques coupled to mass spectrometry, such as GC-MS, HPLC-MS, tandem HPLC-MS/MS, or HRMS. While these methods offer excellent sensitivity down to the ppt range, they are time-consuming, costly, and require laboratory infrastructure and trained personnel, limiting their use for on-site or routine monitoring, for example at industrial sites or wastewater treatment plants. In contrast, fluorescence assays provide a simpler, portable, and cost-effective alternative with rapid response and high sensitivity, particularly when analyte binding enhances probe emission. Integrating such probes with suitable carrier platforms and miniaturized optofluidic devices represents a promising approach for point-of-need PFCA monitoring. In this study, we present the development of a green-fluorescent guanidine-BODIPY indicator monomer incorporated into a molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) for the selective detection of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). Analyte binding induces a fluorescence enhancement, enabling sensitive detection. The MIP is deposited as a thin layer on silica nanoparticles doped with tris(bipyridine)ruthenium(II) chloride, which provides an internal orange-emitting reference and improves measurement precision. In combination with a liquid–liquid extraction protocol, the system allows direct detection of PFOA in environmental water samples with a detection limit of 0.11 μM. Integration into an opto-microfluidic platform further enables rapid and user-friendly analysis within 15 minutes.

In 2017 the first German package approval certificate was issued for a dual purpose cask (DPC) design with encapsulated damaged spent nuclear fuel. At the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) a comprehensive assessment procedure was carried out with respect to the mechanical and thermal design, the containment design and quality assurance for manufacturing and operation. Main objective of this procedure was to verify the Package Design Safety Report (PDSR) fulfils the requirements according to the IAEA regulations SSR-6. Until now only standard spent nuclear fuel assemblies were designated for interim storage and transports. Due to nuclear phase out in Germany all other kinds of SNF in particular damaged fuel has to be packed. Therefore specific requirements have to be considered in accordance with international experiences written in IAEA technical reports. In Germany damaged spent nuclear fuel (DSNF) needs a tight encapsulation with special encapsulations and clearly defined properties. Due to the limited amount of DSNF these encapsulations are designed for storage and transport in existing packages. From the assessment experience it has been seen, corresponding PDSR need an extensively expansion to cover the design of these encapsulations and their influences on the package. Then such well-defined encapsulations can be handled like standard fuel assemblies. The main difference to standard package components is, encapsulations with permanent closure achieve their specified condition not after manufacturing but only during operation after loading and closing. Thus specific handling instruction and test procedures are necessary especially for welding, where BAM is able to survey the quality of this first part of operation.