First prize again: students of South China University of Technology rewrite brilliancy in the Nation Structural Design Competition

The SCUT team

On October 16, 2016, China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Cup & the 10th Nation College Students Structure Design Competition was ended in Tianjin University. With the outstanding performance of the students from South China University of Technology (SCUT), their team work the Concentric Pavilion won the first prize and excellent organization award in the intense competition. Up to now, students from SCUT have participated in the national competition for 10 times, and have won the first prize for 6 times, the second prize for 2 times, the third prize for 1 time, and the excellent organization award for 8 times cumulatively. The cumulative number of the first prize ranks the third among the colleges and universities in the national competition.

Competition site

This competition attracted 125 teams from 123 colleges and universities. Nearly 700 students and teachers participated in the competition, breaking the record for the number of participants in history. The topics of competition are based on the increasing social demand and engineering application of long-span spatial structures. The space structure has been widely applied in large sport venues, theaters, convention and exhibition centers, airport terminals, railway passenger stations and different kinds of industrial factory buildings. The contestants were required to design and manufacture a large roof structure, subjected to uniformly distributed space load, for satisfying several deflection requirements.

Applying loading on the manufactured structural model

The SCUT team is composed of three undergraduate students from the Department of Civil Engineering of School of Civil Engineering and Transportation, including Zheng Kaixiang, Wang Xunda and Lu Jiandong. After nearly 30 inter-school competitions including design, production, testing and modification, they won the inter-school competitions by exploring a set of reasonable design schemes, and finally decided to utilize the work the Concentric Pavilion to attend the competition on behalf of SCUT. This work combined cross-arch with column, used self balancing system of beam string structure to make balance between the material consumption and safety performance of the large span roof structure. The work adopted the scheme that the cross section of the double arch was reduced by the variable cross section and local reinforcement, and the layout model carrying capacity was properly designed. The main feature of the model was that the structural force path was clear, and the configuration of the structure was concise without over-simplification. Reasonable shape and appropriate sizes made the model rigid as well as soft, perfectly met the requirements of the competition.

Presentation section

Finally, under the elaborate supervision of the professors (including Prof. Wang Zhan, He Wenhui, Wei Feng, Chen Qingjun, Ji Jing and Liu Muguang), the model the Concentric Pavilion, successfully experienced four-level loading in two stages, won the first prize. The self-weight of the structure was 80.5g and the deflection of it was 3.12mm. It was subjected 15kg and 18kg in the first and the second stages of loading, respectively.
Since receiving the invitation of the competition in June this year, Academic Affairs Office, School Youth League Committee and School of Civil Engineering and Transportation of SCUT have attached great importance and offered great support to the competition, by not only providing financial support for equipment and materials, but also offering students with policy support for honor award and innovation credit and other aspects, for making the contestants fully devote to the competition.
It is reported that the Nation College Students Structure Design Competition is one of the nine major college discipline competitions by Ministry of Education. The competition is jointly organized by the National Higher School of Civil Engineering Discipline Steering Committee and the Chinese Civil Engineering Society. It is the highest academic competition in civil engineering discipline, aiming at cultivating college students' innovative spirit, team consciousness and practice ability, and it is known as “the brightest pearl on crow in civil engineering”. (Editor: Wu Xiaohuan, Mu He-Qing. Photo: Wu Xiaxi)

Attachment: Award list of SCUT in Nation College Students Structure Design Competition