SDSU claims people’s choice in concrete contest

Graduate students in the Lohr Structures Lab at South Dakota State University proved their standing among their peers when they competed at the fourth International Interactive Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Concrete in Des Moines, Iowa, June 14-17.

The student competition portion of the symposium featured 15 teams from the United States and overseas designing and building an ultra-high performance concrete beam and then having it tested. The SDSU entry was among nine that advanced to the finals, where it received the people’s choice award based on the team’s presentation at the poster session June 14.

Team members were first-year doctoral students Mazen Hassan and Pramashis Kar, second-year doctoral student Hamidul Bari and second-year master’s student Behnam Hooshyari.

The beam was 954 millimeters long, 120 millimeters wide and 180 millimeters high (38x7x5 inches) with a reinforcement of three #3 steel bars near the bottom face. 

“The SDSU team designed a hybrid beam with an I-section in the center transitioning to a box section at the ends. The selected shape maximizes strength and reduces material volume, thus also reducing costs,” explained Akram Jawdhari, their adviser and director of Lohr Structures Lab.

The constructing of the beam was done in the Lohr Structures Lab while the testing was done at Iowa State. 

In the student poster presentation, the students summarized the beam design, its construction and the analysis procedures as well as answering questions from conference attendees, who then voted for their favorite poster and project, Jawdhari explained.

It was the first time SDSU entered a team in the contest.

Ultra-high performance concrete is a class of cementitious composite made with a low water-binder ratio and the addition of short, dispersed steel fibers at a dosage of 2%, which significantly improves material tensile strength and ductility, Jawdhari, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, explained.

In addition to the competition, each student gave a presentation and co-authored a conference paper with Jawdhari.