Another edition of Técnico's Open Day took place on Saturday, April 20th. The event, which took place from 10am to 5pm, included more than 100 activities and brought around 2000 visitors to Técnico.

DECivil participated in the Science Fair through the research centers CERIS and CITUA.

In the CERIS space were researchers Mário Sá and Clara Pereira and Professor Carlos Tiago, who demonstrated the effect caused in reduced models of two buildings due to accelerations at their base using a portable seismic table.

Professor Albano Neves e Sousa guided the visit Evolution of Civil Engineering teaching to the DECivil Museum. This was conducted relating the pieces on display with the evolution of Civil Engineering teaching.

In the Construction Laboratory, visitors were guided by Laboratory Technician Jorge Pontes. The visit was under the theme Concrete, the main material of our structures. Here visitors had the opportunity to observe samples of various types of concrete and the materials that make it up. They had contact with samples of sustainable concrete such as paving blocks produced with recycled aggregates and rice varieties. They also observed the process of hardening the plaster and extinguishing the quicklime. Finally, they watched a demonstration of a compression failure test of a concrete specimen.

The visits to the Hydraulics, Water Resources and Environment Laboratory were carried out by the final year Master's student in Civil Engineering, Miguel Tavares. The theme of the visit was The Path of Water: From the Source to Our Taps in which the phenomenon of water vaporization due to localized lowering of pressure in a choke in a transparent pipe was shown. The evolution of pressure was visualized along a water pipe with variable section. During the visits, the process of transferring water energy existing in a water pipeline under pressure was observed, for kinetic energy of the jet, kinetic energy of rotation of the shaft of a Pelton turbine and conversion into electrical energy in a small generator that fed from electrical current a lamp. The energy transfer process in a hydraulic wheel installed in a canal was also illustrated. To finish, a brief explanation of hydraulic rebound was given and then the phenomenon was observed in a free surface channel, with different inclinations.

During their visits to the Structures and Strength of Materials Laboratory, where they were guided by Professor Carlos Tiago, the topic was Why don’t structures fall?. Here the mechanical behavior of some structures from the past, present and future of Civil Engineering was observed. In particular, visitors had the opportunity to observe reinforced concrete beams reinforced with carbon fibers, FRP (fiber-reinforced polymer) profiles, metallic connections between composite materials, the lateral buckling of a large steel beam and stone masonry walls with various reinforcement solutions. The three-dimensional porch made up of composite fiberglass profiles and concrete slabs mounted on the seismic table, the wind tunnel and the wooden structure taken from a wall of an 18th century "cage building" in Baixa Pombalina were other points of interest.

A photo gallery of the event can be found in the news article Técnico receives more than two thousand visitors on Open Day 2024.

DECivil thanks all its collaborators who participated in the Técnico Open Day on April 20th, namely Laboratory Technician Jorge Pontes and student Miguel Tavares for the visits they guided to the laboratories, Professor Albano Neves e Sousa for the guided tour of the DECivil Museum and members of CERIS (Researchers Mário Sá and Clara Pereira) and CITUA (Integrated Masters in Architecture student Beatriz Machado) present at the Science Fair.

🔗 Biography: https://linktr.ee/decivil