N E W S 10 April 2016 STUDENTS WIN NATIONAL ENGINEERING PRIZE FOR 10TH TIME A team of four Mechanical Engineering students from the the University of Canterbury has won a national engineering prize, the Ray Meyer Medal for Excellence in Student Design. This win means that Mechanical Engineering students at Canterbury University have won the excellence award 10 times in the last 12 years, an emphatic endorsement for the top College of Engineering in New Zealand. The award is made annually for the best student engineering project from all New Zealand universities and polytechnics and was presented to the winning University of Canterbury team at the IPENZ Fellows and Achievers Dinner on Friday, 18 March, in Wellington. The Ray Meyer Medal for Excellence in Student Design for 2016 was awarded to Mo Chalabi, Thomas Coughlan, Josh Heenan and Abel Leenders from Canterbury University for their project, Service Cover Detection for Pavement Milling. The project was supervised by senior lecturer in Mechanical Engineering Dr Geoffrey Rodgers and client Ian Viney of international technology company Trimble. Trimble, in association with Fulton Hogan, was looking for an answer to the problem of road milling machines hitting buried utility infrastructure, damaging the machine and the infrastructure, as well as creating a hazard for the operator. Within a budget of $1800, the UC student team built a prototype using very low frequency radio waves (VLF) technology which can detect metal up to 25cm deep in the ground. It was installed on a Fulton Hogan milling machine and tested successfully. No other system exists that utilises multiple metal detection units on a pavement milling machine. The design is now being considered for commercial development. Judges were impressed with the clarity of the project report, its analysis of the options for a solution and the quality of the prototype produced. They also praised the way the project was managed and the quality of communication with stakeholders. The winning team’s academic project supervisor Dr Rodgers, who is the University of Canterbury Student Association’s Lecturer of the Year 2015, praised the team’s efforts. “We are all excited about the win, it is a great recognition of the work the students did and a great reflection on UC,” Dr Rodgers says. “It also reflects the strength of the final-year project programme and the strong connection it creates with industry. Great outcomes can be achieved when students can work directly with an industrial mentor such as Ian Viney and a company such as Trimble.” The students have now graduated with one working in France and another currently on an internship for Trimble. Flowcrete Australia Altex Coatings Ltd enter NZ distribution agreement Flowcrete Australia has entered into a new distribution agreement to make its full range of high-performance resin flooring solutions available across all of New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. Collaborating with Altex Coatings Ltd (a member of the Resene group of companies) will geographically enhance Flowcrete Australia’s presence in the construction market throughout these regions. This advantage is thanks to the extensive network of offices and well-established links to the building industry that the Tauranga based protective coatings specialists has developed. Altex Coatings has identified a significant demand for flooring materials among its existing client base and this agreement means that its customers can immediately source a wide variety of specialist epoxy, polyurethane and methyl methacrylate (MMA) resin floor and wall coating solutions. By having access to Flowcrete’s full portfolio, Altex Coatings will be able to provide commercial and industrial developments with innovative flooring technology that is not otherwise available in New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. The Piling & Deep Foundations New Zealand Summit With New Zealand experiencing the largest construction boom in 40 years, unprecedented growth is expected over the next decade. Annual construction activity is set to peak at more than $30b in 2016, with Auckland and Christchurch driving much of the demand. This is increasing the need to optimise pile and deep foundation design, provide cost effective, safe and efficient operations, and perform accurate site investigations through best practice testing techniques. Given this, the Inaugural Piling & Deep Foundations Summit will be held in Auckland on the 7th and 8th of June 2016. Flowcrete Australia’s Managing Director Sean Tinsley (left) shaking hands with Altex Coatings’ managing Director Mike O’Sullivan (right) after agreeing a new distribution agreement for Flowcrete’s specialist resin flooring solutions in New Zealand (From left to right) Abel Leenders, Thomas Coughlan, Mo Chalabi, and Josh Heenan ENPHASE ENERGY OPENS NEW R&D FACILITY Enphase Energy announced last month that it has made a US$4.4 million investment to expand its global research and development (R&D) facility in Christchurch. This new facility will allow Enphase to conduct global compliance testing and verification capabilities for its microinverters and expand on the future development of the Enphase AC Battery™, a modular energy storage system that integrates with the Enphase Home Energy Solution. The facility also has the capacity to allow for future expansion as the company assembles its second largest engineering workforce in the world outside of its lead engineering team in Petaluma, California. New Zealand and Australia will be the first countries in the world where Enphase will launch its new Home Energy Solution from Winter 2016. The Enphase Home Energy Solution is an integrated solution that combines solar generation, energy control, and energy storage, offering homeowners a plug-and-play AC battery to store energy generated from their solar photovoltaic (PV) system. “Over the years, our engineering team in Christchurch has strategically contributed toward the design,
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