Petria presented her research at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) East of England Graduate & Student Papers Competition held at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge last week (19th).
She was a member of a team undertaking the project for a Master in Engineering degree course at Cambridge University. They collaborated with the Switzerland based Shelter Centre which provides temporary shelters for people made homeless in disasters and conflicts throughout the world.
The project involved tests on three tents provided by the Shelter Centre, the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Red Cross. Tests included foundation designs, tent behaviour under wind load, bolt hole locations and tensile strength of the covering. The DFID and Shelter Centre tents gave the best results.
The Graduate and Student Papers Competition has been run since 1951 to promote and reward excellence in the communication of civil engineering issues and ideas. Petia’s paper will go forward to the next round where papers from all ICE regions are considered and three selected for a national final later this year.
The runners up were Jack Bennett who received £150 for his paper 'Mapping the Human Brain to Stop Dams Collapsing' and Butholezwe Dube who received £75 for 'The Effect of Increasing PFA Content and Calcium Hydroxide Activation on the Mechanical Properties of Concrete'.
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