At the University of Southern Queensland, our Engineering students will benefit from world class labs and specialised teaching and research spaces after the engineering building at our Springfield campus underwent a $5.8 million expansion.
The expanded building features multiple teaching and research laboratories, including a robotics and automation room, lab spaces for future materials development, power and energy testing and civil and structural engineering testing systems, technician offices, workshops, a student collaboration space and seminar room.
Professor Kevin McDougall said the expansion was a significant investment for the future and would give students more opportunities to develop their technical and practical engineering and surveying skills using the latest technology.
"We want to make sure our students have the best facilities and opportunities to learn, and ensure our graduates have the sought-after skills that industry needs, both now and into the future. It will also expand our capacity to conduct leading-edge research and work with industry to contribute to the development of new knowledge and solutions that address real-world problems."
The building has multiple sensors embedded throughout to allow students to monitor its structural health performance in real-time for their studies. The integrated sensor roving technology has never been done before in Australia and possibly around the world.
'Our engineering specialist Dr Andy Nguyen has been at the forefront of this system development, which will allow us to measure critical static and dynamic characteristics, such as strain-stress, deflection, frequencies and mode shapes.'
