The 14th National Structural Design Contest for College Students was held in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Under the guidance of Shao Yongsong and Lu Shanshan, the Bingcheng Zidingxiang(Ice City-Lilac) Team from the School of Civil Engineering, won the first prize with its work Fu’an Bridge, which is the fifth consecutive first prize HIT has won in this contest. The team was composed of three junior undergraduates: Zhao Bingliang, Zhang Jian and Zhuo Xiaolan. In this contest, Professor Fan Feng from the School of Civil Engineering won the “Outstanding Contribution Award”, the Secretariat of HIT won the “Outstanding Secretariat Award” and the School of Civil Engineering as the provincial secretariat of the Contest received the “Outstanding Organization Award”.
The Contest was co-sponsored by the Engineering Education Committee of the China Association of Higher Education, the National Steering Committee of Civil Engineering Education in China, the Education Committee of the China Engineering Society, and the Department of Environment, Civil Engineering and Water Conservancy of the Science and Technology Commission of Ministry of Education. And it was held by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. After preliminary competition among 1148 teams from 550 colleges in different regions, 112 teams from 111 colleges reached the finals. Due to the epidemic, the Contest was held offline in Shanghai and online in Harbin. Four teams from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Northeast Forestry University and Harbin University respectively were present in the Contest online in Harbin.
The subject of the Contest is “Design and Manufacture of A Bridge Structure Model with Variable Parameters”. Taking the bridge structure bearing vertical load and dynamic loads as the object, the Contest is offered more flexibility by adding some undetermined parameters. Also, it emphasized the overall requirements for the comprehensive ability of outstanding engineers in the future by adding the on-site design.
The HIT team designed and manufactured the structure that met the requirements of the Contest in a simple way of force transmission. Specifically, it made concerted efforts to manufacture the model by combining truss and string truss and taking into account the structure force diagram under different stages of load distribution. Therefore, the structure proved to be more economical and rational considering its safety and stability. After 16-hour on-site manufacturing, the HIT team submitted its work Fu’an Bridge which successfully passed the three loading tests of adding vertical static loads without linking eight points, making two dynamic loads movements and taking 50N shot rolling loads, winning the first prize. And its excellent performance in the on-site defense was also highly recognized by the experts and judges.
It is known that, as one of the first nine funded projects of the national undergraduate discipline competition approved by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, the National Structure Design Contest for College Students is the most influential scientific and technological innovation event for college students majoring in civil engineering in China. It is also the highest-level competition for the civil engineering discipline amongst domestic colleges and universities.
Aiming to cultivate undergraduates' innovative thinking, teamwork and practical ability, HIT’s School of Civil Engineering holds structure design contests annually for freshmen students who major in Civil Engineering.
Written by: Yan Mingxing
