Engineering Now .: Volume 4 - Edition 9 .: July and August 2008

WE Big Beam teams come home winners

Two teams from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in Western Engineering competed in the 2008 Engineering Design Competition organized by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI).

Big Beam Team #2, made up of Ismaeel Babur, Luis Orta, Mohamed El Semelawy and M. Shahria Alam, came home victorious, after placing 1st in the International Zone (in which countries outside the US compete), and 6th place in the overall competition, which comes with $1000.00 in prize money.

Big Beam Team #1, made up of Salah El-Din El-Fitiany, Yamen I. Elbahy, Mahmoud A. Elfeki, Mohamed El Naggar, and Mohammad Al Amin Siddique, returned after winning 5th place in the International Zone, which comes with $100.00 in prize money.

The competition involves designing, building, and testing a precast prestressed concrete beam. Prizes are awarded based on: (1) design accuracy; the beam should hold at least a factored live load of 32 kip and should not hold more than 38 kip, (2) cost, (3) weight, (4) deflection before failure, (5) analytical prediction of cracking load and deflection at maximum load, (6) report quality, (7) Practicality/innovation.

Both teams were advised by Dr. Maged A. Youssef from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The beams were constructed under the guidance of Anil Mehta and Nebojsa Mladenovic from The Prestressed Group located in Windsor, Ontario and tested under the supervision of Mr. Wilbert Logan. The teams are grateful for Mr. David Garcia and Mr. Aiham Adawi from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering for their help during the construction phase.

Congratulations to both Big Beam teams on their success!

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Contact

.: Becky Blue
Spencer Engineering Building, Room 2074
Telephone: (519) 850-2917 Fax: (519) 661-3808
contactwe@eng.uwo.ca