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.