Our students Marko Mandić, Ilija Srebrović and Dario Budimir (as competitors) and Martina Moro and Enio Stipanović as participants attended the finals of the students' International Civil Engineering Competition in Timișoara (Romania) during the last week. After winning the local stage organized by IACES LC Mostar, their team headed to the final stage. Many countries from Europe, Africa and Asia participated in the competition. The competition was divided into three sub-competitions:
1. Competition in making the strongest concrete (course Construction Materials)
2. Competition in building a hydraulic engineering system (course Hydromechanics)
3. Competition for the construction of a 4-story earthquake-resistant building (course Structural and Earthquake Engineering).
Our students were the most successful in the first sub-competition where they won first place for making the strongest concrete. Their model reached an incredible strength of 65 MPa in 24 hours, while it is normal for this value to be between 25 and 30 MPa. Their model was almost three times as strong as the model of the second-place team!
In the second competition, a hydraulic engineering system for the flow of water was built. Their team was a little worse this time, the results were all close, so solace was sought in the last competition.
The last competition was reportedly the most interesting for them. The structure was built on 4 floors from different materials. Wooden boards (load-bearing slabs), wooden sticks (columns), cardboard (load-bearing walls).
After construction, the models were tested for earthquakes.
The device for testing the building for earthquakes operated on the basis of an earthquake that occurred in Japan and had a magnitude of 7.3.
Their model withstood 110%, which means a magnitude of 8.03 on the Richter scale. Only two models were stronger than their model, and these withstood 120% and 130% of the said earthquake.
All in all, our students say they are satisfied, they won one first place, and they were fifth overall.
Our students would like to thank their professors Krešimir Šaravanja, Mirna Raič and Marin Jurišić for their help in consulting for the competition, and especially thanks to the City of Čapljina and the Municipality of Posušje and the company Alfa Therm as they helped students go to the International Civil Engineering Competition, and they hope that they met the expectations and partly promoted their cities and their faculty.
