(from right) Haikal Tamir, Raynard Vincent Elsantio, Andreas Maxwel Sitompul, and Muhammad Ardhi Wicaksono who are members of the ITS Equilibriums Team.

ITS Campus, ITS News — The academic community of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) continues to be committed to making brilliant achievements in the international arena. This time, the Equilibriums team from the ITS Civil Engineering Department won three awards at the international Introducing and Demonstrating Earthquake Engineering Research (IDEERS) event in Taipei, Taiwan on September 19-21, 2024.

IDEERS is a competition for structural design and testing of earthquake-resistant buildings held by the Taiwan National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). This competition was attended by student teams from various countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea. This year, ITS managed to bag awards in two categories, namely Earthquake Resistant Design and Design Concept and Exhibition and was ranked 6th in the Certification of Excellent of Efficiency Ratio.

View of the CHARM Tower earthquake-resistant building structure design model by the ITS Equilibriums team

One of the members of the ITS Equilibriums team, Andreas Maxwell Sitompul, said that his team managed to occupy the highest position in Asia in the undergraduate category through a building structure design called the CHARM Tower. “The CHARM Tower has a philosophy like the wings of a Garuda bird which depicts the strength to maintain the balance of a building,” explained the student who is familiarly called Max.

To produce this superior design, Max explained that his team had to overcome the challenge of making a model of the building structure with limited materials. “We only use Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) wooden sticks, glue gun, rubber bands, and paper,” said the young man from Jambi City.

Through thorough preparation since June 2024, the team, guided by Dr. Candra Irawan ST MT, managed to create a design plan by combining wooden assemblies covered with paper. According to Max, the paper layer makes the building stronger to withstand shocks. “In addition, we added rubber bands around the building, so that the building can return to its original position when an earthquake occurs,” he said.

The ITS Equilibriums Team working on the design of an earthquake-resistant building structure called the CHARM Tower at the IDEERS event in Taiwan

Furthermore, the alumnus of SMA Negeri 4 Jambi City added that the building design structure was then subjected to horizontal loads and tested with an artificial earthquake on a shaking table. “Our team managed to achieve accelerations of up to 700 gal and loading mass blocks of up to 15.4 kilograms,” said the 2021 student.

Behind his success in this prestigious event, the student who likes basketball admitted that his team had encountered obstacles in the limitations of vertical load testing facilities and artificial earthquakes. “However, we were able to overcome it by being meticulous in a series of tests to get the optimum model,” he added.

Thanks to perseverance and thoroughness, the team consisting of Raynard Vincent Elsantio, Muhammad Ardhi Wicaksono, Haikal Tamir, and Max himself not only succeeded in making Indonesia proud in the international arena. But also opens opportunities for ITS students to be more involved in other prestigious international competitions. (ITS PR)

Reporter: Hani Aqilah Safitri