VDMA honours five young engineers for innovation and sustainability
Awards presented for standout bachelor, master and diploma research.
At the Aachen-Dresden-Denkendorf International Textile Conference held in Aachen in late November, the Walter Reiners Foundation of the VDMA recognised five emerging engineers for their outstanding academic achievements. The awards, presented by Peter D. Dornier, Chairman of the Foundation, honoured excellence across bachelor, master and diploma categories, with a strong focus on innovation and sustainability in textile technologies.
In the bachelor category, the €3,000 sustainability award was presented to Jasmin Roos of RWTH Aachen University. Her research explored new approaches to textile recycling by substituting non-recyclable elastane with melt-spun yarns, offering a pathway to more circular and resource-efficient material streams.
The €3,500 master’s promotion award went to Raphael Wiederkehr of DITF Denkendorf. His thesis examined how carding machinery influences the quality of mechanically recycled fibres, aiming to reduce waste and enhance the share of recycled material used in the spinning process. He also investigated automation within the process chain for producing welded textile hard goods.
Another €3,500 master’s promotion award was conferred on Janne Marie Warnecke of RWTH Aachen University for her work on FEM analysis of stresses and deformations occurring in fabric during the winding process on weaving machines — research that supports better performance and durability in woven structures.
In the diploma category, Lena Fink from TU Dresden received a €3,500 promotion award for her study on the forming behaviour of multiaxial fabrics used in profile preforms, a topic of growing importance in advanced composites.
A €3,500 sustainability prize was also awarded to Yuanjing Cai of TU Dresden, whose research demonstrated how carbon fibre production can be made more sustainable by replacing conventional precursors, offering promising implications for the high-performance materials industry.
