Dr Cobus van Dyk is a matiealumni that started and completed his studies here at SU all in the space of 10 years. He started his undergraduate degree (BEng) in Civil Engineering in 1998 and obtained a doctoral degree in 2008 where he received the H.L. Reitz medal for the best postgraduate student in the department. Currently he is working at UWP where he is blossoming and is already a principal engineering in a short space of time. Dr Cobus van Dyk was awarded the Young Engineer of the Year award at the SAICE awards dinner held in Durban on 16 October 2014. The award is sponsored by the University of Pretoria. Dr Peter Day wins the Engineer of the Year award Dr Peter Day is a renowned civil engineer that received a DEng in 2013 from SU for his contribution to the field. Peter is currently working at Jones and Wagener but has also joined SU and is lecturing postgraduate students orientating their studies in the field of geotechnical engineering. Peter recently received the Engineer of the Year award at the SAICE awards dinner held in Durban on 16 October 2014.  

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In August, we were two US students travelling through Europe, on the way to the Bauhaus Summer School. We were Janus Malherbe and Jan-Hendrik Schreuder, two postgraduate engineering students at the department of Construction & Engineering Management, who went on this expedition. But first, more about the course… The name of the course was “Forecast Engineering and Global Climate Change”, it covered a wide variety of subjects. The focus was structural design for a number of specific purposes, such as Seismic activity, Topological Optimisation, Change Detection Algorithms, Wind Flow Modelling and the application of BIG City Data in civil engineering. There were guest speakers from around the globe, these experts gave us exposure to the above mentioned fields and much more. The course also contained a project which had to be done at the university. Out of various possible theme options we chose the design of long span bridges. The topic under this theme were the optimisation of the aerodynamic properties of a long span bridge. The Civil Engineering Department of Bauhaus University is a focused unit, with specific specializations, one of which is the design of long span bridges and the aerodynamics of these structures. We also want to thank Stellenbosch University, Bauhaus University, our supervisor Prof Jan Wium and the Post Graduate and International Office of the US. It is these institutions and people that made this opportunity a reality. From lef to right the names of the people on the photo: Jan-Hendrik Schreuder (Stellenbosch University) Janus Malherbe (Stellenbosch University) Lars Abrahamczyk (Facilitator from Bauhaus University, Germany) Matthieu Benoît Rhomberg (University of Innsbruck, Austria) Daeyoung Kim (South Corea) Igor Kavrakov (Bauhaus University, Germany)

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Johann Potgieter, currently a PhD candidate in the field of Civil Engineering Informatics, won the prize in the category “Best post-graduate paper” at the 14th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (ICCCBE 14) that was held in Moscow in June 2012. This is a remarkable achievement since the ICCCBE conferences are the most important conferences in the field of Civil Engineering Informatics and approximately 300 papers were accepted for ICCCBE14. Johann’s paper, titled “A multi-objective approach to project scheduling”, addresses the problem of task scheduling for the consulting engineering industry with a unique approach towards minimising both the duration and the resource demands of the schedule. The prize was awarded during the closing ceremony of the conference in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. In the picture below Johann appears on the left, next to Prof Dr Valery Tilichenko (rector of the Moscow State University of Civil Engineering), Prof. Dr. Svetlana Bachurina (Russian representative on the International Society for Computing in Civil and Building Engineering) and Dr Ing Irina Bilchuk (conference

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At the recent Third International Conference on Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies (SCMT3 2013), held in Kyoto, Japan on 18-21 August 2013, best paper awards were made from the selected conference papers by the local and international organizing committee. Suvash Chandra Paul, a PhD student in Department of Civil Engineering presented his paper entitled “Chloride Induced Corrosion in Cracked Reinforced Strain Hardening Cement-Based Composite (R/SHCC)” at the conference and won an award. This paper was selected to be published in the International Journal of Advanced Concrete Technology (JACT), Japan. Suvash Chandra Paul seen on the left, holding the award certificate with Prof van Zijl. The paper was co-authored by Prof Gideon van Zijl, Mr Suvash Chandra Paul’s PhD supervisor and Mr Andrew Theunissen. Prof van Zijl also presented a paper at this conference, entitled “Crack spacing in steel bar reinforced strain hardening cement-based composites (R/SHCC), towards corrosion modelling”. For more information, click here.

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Please follow this link to see the photos of our Civil Engineering Prize Giving for 2013

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