UTCB and EU-CONEXUS were present at the 2023 Seismic Design Competition in San Francisco, United States of America

UTCB, in its quality as one of the universities from our Alliance that prepares the future experts in seismology from Romania, was present this year as well at the biggest competition in earthquake engineering, namely – Seismic Design Competition, organized by EERI – Earthquake Engineering Institute.

This year, this competition took place in San Francisco in the United States of America and on behalf of UTCB and EU-CONEXUS we had two representatives, namely Lavinia Turcu, EU-CONEXUS Communication and External Relations in UTCB and Alexandru Ioniță, UTCB Students Association President – ASCB, administrative support for local student activities in our Alliance.

UTCB has been participating at this prestigious event since 2016, and last year UTCB students achieved the performance being awarded 3rd place. The scope of the competition is to help future civil engineers develop leadership and interpersonal skills while gaining practical experience within the field of earthquake engineering.

We hereby congratulate the students who represented Romania at this prestigious event:Eliza Lisenchi, Alexandra Müller, Cornel Cumpanasu, Răzvan Stere, Emanuel Muntean, Petru Marica, Paul Balaban.

Each year, over 30 teams from universities across the United States and around the world compete in the SDC Competition. Each team has designed a complex tall building model made from balsa wood that is tested on a shake table. Student teams are then judged based on the model’s architectural design, the response of their model at the shake test and also based on their:

• oral design presentation
• summary poster
• ability to fit within the design criteria and constraints
• analytical prediction of their model performance

This year, UTCB Team managed to obtain the following prizes:

• Best architecture award
• Best proposal
• Best presentation
• Best analysis predicted score (APS)

Through the participation of EU-CONEXUS representatives from UTCB, the promotion of our Alliance  was also possible. This event represented a good opportunity to spread the word about our work and future endeavors.

The following American NGOs, related to our area of interest, were contacted and informed of who we are and that we do: Sustainable Conservation San Francisco , Pacific Beach Coalition , Acterra, American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE).

This collaboration can materialize in online small trainings and events, meant to spread awareness about our Alliance and their activity, while better informing our student community of the importance of taking care of our coastal areas.