\chapter{Acknowledgments}\label{chap:ack}

I would like to give special thanks to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Michael Protogerakis for his attentive supervision of my Master's Project and this thesis.

N. Stuhrmann and M. Meilchen too have my gratitude for their tireless assistance in the laboratory.

Thank you to Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ralf Beck for offering to be the second examiner of this thesis.

M. Viehöfer from Siep Kieswerk GmbH \& Co. KG has my deepest appreciation for their generous support, allowing me to test my prototypes on their site.

Finally, I would like to thank S. Nagappan and D. Rashid for their proofreading of this work, and my partner I. Gvazdaityte whose everlasting support made this work possible.

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