Recent Events

2013 AGM and Technical Presentation, March 2013

The NSW Association AGM was held at Engineers Australia in Chatswood on 7 March.  About fifty members attended the meeting.  This was followed by a technical presentation entitled ‘The Glenfield to Leppington Rail Link - the challenges and solutions to facilitate growth in South West Sydney with New South Wales’s newest railway infrastructure. The talk was given by David Polkinghorne, Design Manager at John Holland and David Putley, Engineering Manager of Transport for New South Wales.

David Polkinghorne


David Putley

The 12 km dual track link, now under construction, will provide easy access to the city for the South West Growth Centre where 110,000 new homes are to be built over the next 20 years.  It will also ease traffic congestion in the southwest of Sydney. As well as the terminus station at Leppington and an intermediate station at Edmondson Park, the construction has required very deep (13 m) cuttings, high embankments, a 28 span 12 m high viaduct, and an 80 metre underpass excavated beneath the Hume Highway. Time spent in detailed planning at the start of the contract has proven to be a valuable investment as the project is running well ahead of schedule despite a constrained 40 m wide construction corridor. The technical details of the viaduct, the tunnelling and some innovative safety features (eg early provision of permanent rather than temporary hand-railing) coupled with a computer-simulated fly-by and screening of TV news coverage made for an interesting talk.

Cowpasture Road Viaduct


Edmondson Park Station


At the AGM, Chair Matt Colton and Treasurer Steve McKenna provided a brief review of the year 2012-2013 and the planned events and budget for the forthcoming year. Attached is our current Business Plan for the NSW Association. Matt also thanked members of the outgoing committee for their work over the year. Simon Bourne, Emma Kent, David Anderson, Angelo Arulanandam, Steve McKenna and Kenan Aldenir did not stand for re-election having taken up employment outside NSW or having other commitments.

Matt Colton

Matt also presented the initial findings of the recent Survey Monkey survey of the NSW membership. These indicated clear support for more Technical Presentations (in preference to social events and construction site visits); attendance being constrained by meeting location / journey time; and support for greater collaboration with other professional bodies (e.g. shared events).

Alex Falvey

Elections were held for all NSW association committee positions. Proceedings were run by Alex Falvey, the ICE Representative for NSW (which is a role directly appointed by the ICE in London). The new committee for 2013 – 2014 comprises:
 

See attached Roles and Responsibilities schedule for further details.


Some members of the 2013-14 ICE NSW Committee
Back Row (l to r): Geoff Amblin, Brian Uy (IStructE Representative), Andrew Ruffles, Tim Summers, Andrew Buckley, Jivir Viyakesparan.
Front Row (l to r): Robert Smith, Alex Falvey, Matt Colton, Jon Holliday.

UNSW Innovative Industry Research Forum, Feburary 2013
On 21 February Tim Summers and Geoff Amblin from the ICE NSW Association attended a seminar at the University of New South Wales for invitees from the civil engineering industry in Sydney. The forum provided the opportunity for UNSW’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering to present their current research work and capabilities and to promote greater collaboration between the university and private industry (engineering consultancies and contractors), utility corporations and local/state government bodies. The one day event focussed primarily on innovation in the water industry but with smaller workshop discussions held simultaneously in the afternoon on transport and structural engineering research.
As a result of this inspiring forum, Geoff and Tim have invited UNSW to make a technical presentation to ICE NSW Association to further promote innovation and research in the civil engineering industry in New South Wales.

NSW Association Christmas Dinner, November 2012

On 29 November we held our annual Christmas Dinner for members and their partners. This was held at the American Club in Sydney and was a sell-out event with over a hundred people attending. As well as enjoying a superb three course meal, we were treated to an inspiring after-dinner talk by guest speaker, Matt Formston, paracyclist and gold medal winner at the Australian Paracycling Championships 2012. Matt explained how, having lost most of his sight from macular degeneration at the age of five, he has been able, through determination and risk taking, to become an accomplished rugby player and latterly a medal-winning cyclist. After clearly demonstrating that he was able to walk around the dining area without the aid of a stick, continuing to talk to his audience whilst not bumping into anyone or anything, Matt invited us to experience moving around with his limited vision. As Matt has some peripheral vision, albeit very cloudy, we simulated this by bunching our fists tightly in front of our eyes then walking around our tables. It was a disorientating activity.

Matt Formston speaking at the ICE NSW Association Christmas Dinner

Navigating with obscured vision during Matt's talk

To be a successful sportsman with this very limited vision requires a lot of anticipation, predicting where people and things will be from judging their speed and direction of travel. He explained that it is therefore safer for him to cycle where there are no traffic lights, looking for a gap and going for it! But it does mean assessing and accepting the risks involved. Matt perceived engineers to be generally risk averse, and whilst safety has to be paramount in the construction industry, he challenged us to be more daring and adventurous in the development of our engineering designs and innovative in our construction solutions.

Quarterly Technical Presentation, September 2012 - The Star Casino, Sydney

On 19th September 2012, approximately 40 members of the ICE in NSW gathered in Chatswood to listen to speakers from Taylor Thomson Whitting discuss the Star Casino project in Sydney’s Darling Harbour.

Our speakers were Hung Nguyen, Graham Midgley and Kevin Berry, all structural engineers from TTW, who worked on three different and distinct areas of the project.

After drinks, nibbles and networking, Matt Colton, ICE NSW Chair, opened the evening and welcomed our speakers on behalf of the committee and local members. Jon Holliday, Vice-Chair, then presented our safety moment, highlighting the frequency of road traffic accidents in the construction industry.

Our first speaker, Hung Nguyen, discussed the design and construction of the Darling Hotel and Day Spa, part of the Star complex. Hung discussed some of the design methods used and how they differed from traditional design methods in order to achieve an optimised design. There was a focus on minimising slab thicknesses whilst achieving adequate floor vibration resistance which was carefully modelled and designed. The final piece in the puzzle for the design of this eleven storey structure was the future provision for the Sydney Metro tunnels which was incorporated in the design from the outset.

Following Hung, Graham spoke about the complete regeneration and redevelopment of the existing casino building, particularly the Pirrama Road elevation, which has undergone a total transformation. Graham’s talk focussed on the innovative demolition and construction methods that were used in order to maintain a working casino gaming floor adjacent to the work as well as operational light rail and bus corridors beneath the works. He also talked about achieving the architectural vision by removing columns and hanging the loads back to new structures in order to open out the entrance way and provide a stunning column-free atrium.

Finally, Kevin talked about the design of the new 3000 seat steel-framed Multi-Use Entertainment Facility (MUEF), currently under construction on top of the roof of the existing casino. Kevin’s talk went through some of the strengthening works required to the existing structure prior to building the MUEF. He went onto discuss some of the complex geometry generation methods used in developing the design, as well as the software interfaces between architecture, engineering and fabrication. Kevin also covered some of the practical constraints for construction as well including loadings, plant usage and access.

After the presentations, there were a variety of questions of different natures including technical design questions, practicalities of the site and discussion on innovative demolition methods.

Alex went on to propose our vote of thanks and presented our speakers with a token of our thanks from the committee.

The meeting closed and followed with more discussion with the speakers and networking amongst members.

ICE technical seminar 2nd August 2012

Disaster Relief and Renewable Energy, Engineers’ Opportunity and Obligation
Presented by Chris Lee



Once again, we were privileged to be able to host this seminar at Engineers Australia’s lecture hall in Chatswood.  This is a great location close to the station allowing easy travel for most of our local members. Food and drink was provided before the presentation and gathering members enjoyed early discussion and general catch up on the latest news.

Despite announcing at the start that this was his first talk to the ICE since joining initially as a graduate member in 1964, Chris soon proved that he was an experienced, entertaining and totally engaging speaker. Chris went on to provide a quick overview of his very varied career culminating in his recent involvement in RedR and the Solar Thermal Group. 

The two-part presentation focussed firstly on Chris’ work on various projects for RedR for which he was able to volunteer his services more because of his having learned to fly rather than his extensive civil engineering expertise. He was soon engaged on getting a remote Somalian airstrip into operation having surveyed it using improvised levelling equipment – a hose with water as a manometer – before designing suitable drainage.  Both the drainage system and removal of stones from the surface were executed using abundant labour which proved far more cost effective than bringing in expensive machinery.

The second talk was centered on large solar power stations where thousands of sun-tracking mirrors are used to heat a molten mix of potassium and sodium nitrate which is then used to drive steam turbines and generate electricity. As the salt mixture remains in its molten state over a large temperature range it can be stored in well-insulated tanks to provide heat and power generation during the night or during overcast weather. Chris made the point that the world’s lower atmosphere (troposphere) on which are climate depends is just 17 km thick. Australia is fortunate in having a large land mass compared to its population and abundant sunshine which provides the opportunity to look to a clean energy combination of solar and wind power to provide the whole of its energy needs. The problem is, of course, the enormous initial capital investment required.

Throughout the evening Chris’ passion for the subjects, illustrated with models and props, was particularly evident and he certainly provided some inspiration for all those present.  Many of us were reminded why we entered the profession and of the positive difference we can all make in improving the environment for all.  The real changes we are seeing in climate around the world were brought home with clarity and those present were in full agreement that we do need to act with some urgency. 

The presentation concluded with a significant number of questions from members and much debate continued during further refreshments.

2012 Annual General Meeting and Technical Seminar

The NSW Association AGM was held at Engineers Australia in Chatswood on 29 March.  Forty members and guests attended the meeting which was followed by an informative talk by John Salier, Rocco Bressi and Victor Kardash of Lend Lease on design and construction challenges faced by the Barangaroo Development in the heart of Sydney’s central business district. 

Elections were held for all NSW association committee positions. Proceedings were run by the ICE Representative for NSW, which is a role directly appointed by the ICE in London and currently held by Alex Falvey, and overseen by Steve Finlay the Executive Director for Engineers Australia in Sydney.  The new committee for 2012 – 2013 comprises:

ICE Representative for NSW: Alex Falvey
Chair: Matt Colton
Vice Chair: Jon Holliday
Secretary: Jivir Viyakesparan
Treasurer:   Simon Bourne
Assistant Treasurer:   Emma Kent
Membership Secretary: Stephen Pascal

Chartered Professional Reviews: Tim Summers
Young Professionals Co-ordinators: Emma Kent and Jonathan Durnell
Publicity and Website: Geoff Amblin
ICE expert panel coordination: David Anderson and David Cooper
Upcoming Infrastructure debate coordination: Stephen Pascal and David Cooper
General support: Angelo Arulanandam, Kenan Aldenir and Steve McKenna

Some members of the new ICE NSW Association Committee