Local April 29, 2019 | 12:25 pm

Dominican students receive a prize for structural innovation

Dominican students receive a prize for structural innovation

A civil engineer faces numerous challenges and obstacles in the 21st century, as a result of the new needs of the population, globalization, new technologies and greater competitiveness among professionals.

All this added to the ethical and sustainable need to make infrastructures capable of withstanding the inevitable natural disasters.

In this sense, the Catholic University Madre y Maestra (Pucmm) takes a step forward. And it is that its students of civil engineering and architecture of the Santo Tomás de Aquino Campus (CSTA), obtained the “Egor Popov Award for Structural Innovation” during the international seismic design competition of the Seismic Engineering Research Institute – Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) in Vancouver, Canada.

The teacher Ashley Morales Cartagena, director of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at CSTA, together with students and graduates of civil engineering: Relvin Colón, Laura Céspedes, Claudia Deveaux, José Salazar, Patrick Pimentel, Wilma Reyes and Javier Crespo, shared their experience with the Young Corner in this competition that has given the students the opportunity to acquire important knowledge in their area.

 

Morales Cartagena explained that this is the delegation of the first student chapter EERI in the Dominican Republic and that it was recognized for its work on the application of earthquake-resistant design concepts for the loads generated by the earthquake expected from the Cascadia subduction zone. a structure with great architectural and structural challenges.

“This award values ​​the quality of knowledge in the area of ​​structural and seismic engineering of students and how they have been able to combine with the criteria and concepts of the School of Architecture, in order to create a winning structure among more than 40 universities of world renown,” she said.

She also explained that the award was received within the framework of the Seismic Design Competition (SDC), which has the assistance of 30 teams from universities around the world, which are evaluated for their presentation of oral design, its summary poster, the architectural design of the model, its ability to conform to design criteria, as well as the analytical prediction of its model’s performance and response during rotary table tests.

Likewise, the teacher, referring to her experience in accompanying the students, expressed: “It has been gratifying to see how they have become involved, the maturity and commitment they assume. They learn by applying concepts of advanced studies in seismology, structures, and soils.”

In addition, she explained that the house of high studies seeks to raise awareness of the seismic reality and promote measures to reduce seismic risk in society.

About the project.

The project presented this year is the design of a tower for residential use, hotel, and restaurant of 19 levels located in Downtown Vancouver. This tower must withstand the earthquake expected by the Cascadia subduction zone and comply with restrictions on use and architecture, as well as provide economic profitability after maximized use of the areas.

EERI, founded in 2016, is made up of third and fourth-year students from the Civil Engineering and Architecture Schools of Pucmm who study advanced and practical concepts of earthquake-resistant engineering, structural dynamics, as well as geology, geotechnics, and seismology.

They have participated in two international competitions in Portland, Oregon (2017) and Los Angeles, California (2018). In this last one, they won the prize for “Better Architecture” and the prize Charles Richter Spirit of the Competition.

Comments are closed.