In the latest affirmation of PolyU’s research productivity in the field of construction and building technology, a recent study by a team of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Madrid in Spain has identified PolyU as a leading institution in publications in that field from 2000 to 2011.

Titled "Bibliometric analysis in the international context of the 'Construction and Building Technology' category from the Web of Science database,” the paper ranks the countries and research centres with the most research activities in terms of published articles between 1997 and 2011. The top five research centres in descending order were:

1. Hong Kong Polytechnic University
2. National University of Singapore
3. University of California at Berkeley
4. Purdue University
5. Tongji University

Although the country with the most prolific output is the United States, researchers in mainland China are gradually catching up to their western counterparts. The steady increase in research activity in the field of construction and building technology worldwide is testimony to the growing interest in this area, which is well represented by the specialties in the Faculty of Construction and Environment.

Three cheers for the research efforts by FCE academics, who have contributed to PolyU’s leading position in this field.

Prof. Teng Jin-Guang, Director of the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development and Chair Professor of Structural Engineering of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, together with his collaborators (Prof. Lu Xinzheng of Tsinghua University, Dr Lik Lam of PolyU and Prof. Ye Lieping of Tsinghua University), were recently honored in Beijing with the National Natural Science Award (second-class), China’s most prestigious award in the field of natural science. They were recognized for their pioneering research on the behavior and design of structures strengthened with advanced fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, including the development of the first comprehensive, systematic and scientific theory for FRP-strengthened concrete structures. Their research outcomes have been adopted by civil engineering design guidance documents in China, the US, the UK, and Australia. Congratulations to them all.

In a recent election of the Hong Kong Academy of Engineering Sciences (HKAES), the previous Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environment, Prof. Teng Jin-Guang, has joined the redoubtable ranks of the preeminent organization. As one of its Fellows, Prof. Teng will contribute his expertise to the advancement of the science, art, and practice of engineering for the benefit of society. Previous Fellows have included such luminaries in academe as Prof. Emeritus Ko Jan-ming and Prof. Timothy Tong, President of PolyU. Prof. Teng is honored to have the opportunity to make a difference in the engineering field together with other distinguished Fellows. Congratulations to him for this latest recognition of his accomplishments.

Two academics from the Department of Building Services Engineering (BSE) were honored with Faculty Awards for their outstanding performance at the Jockey Club Auditorium on 22 January 2014.

Dr Chan Ming-yin has demonstrated excellence in the category of teaching, while Prof. Niu Jianlei has been exemplary in his research and scholarly activities.

Dr Chan has dedicated himself to improving the teaching and learning not only within his Department, but also throughout the Faculty. A Co-investigator of a Faculty-wide Teaching and Learning Project from 2010 to 2012, he was involved in developing assessment rubrics for project-based subjects. He also played a major role in the 2005 curriculum reform to emphasize outcome-based learning. His efforts to make a positive impact on his students’ intellectual development and ethical behavior have been rewarded with a Departmental Teaching Excellence Award in 2011/2012.

Ever wondered why fatalities still occur on construction sites when the rate of accidents on-site in the past decade has continued to decline? To address this issue, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) held a workshop on construction safety on 21 January 2014 for various stakeholders, including government officials, major contractors, designers, subcontractors, consultants, and frontline workers. After welcoming remarks from the permanent secretary of the Development Bureau, Ir C.S. Wai, and the Chairman of CIC, Ir S.S. Lee, Prof. Albert Chan and Prof. Francis Wong of the Department of Building and Real Estate led two parallel workshops to explore strategies for reducing accidents in the construction industry. Amongst the topics discussed were the responsibilities of government, landlords, management, construction professionals etc., where improvements can be made in the long/ short term, as well as how to implement and promote them in new engineering projects, renovations, alterations etc. Many innovative ideas were generated from the interactive discussions, which attracted more than 50 participants.

A research group led by Prof. Shengwei Wang, Chair Professor of the Department of Building Services Engineering who also heads the Building Energy and Automation Research Group of RISUD, has been contracted by the Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC) to conduct research on life-cycle commissioning and optimization of the ventilation and air-conditioning systems at the new To Kwa Wan underground station on the proposed east-west line between Shatin and Central. Spanning four stages of work that includes design, installation, commissioning and testing as well as early operation, the project will take a little over four years, from mid-January 2014 to mid-April 2018.

Significant energy savings by the MTRC can be expected as a result of this project, which will cost the MTRC HK$1,750,000. Not bad for a research project that can reduce energy consumption and save money at the same time. Incidentally, the technologies that will be deployed at the To Kwa Wan MTR station by Prof. Wang and his group have also been applied to the air-conditioning systems at the International Commerce Centre in West Kowloon, which led to approximately 15% reduction in energy consumption there.

A unique multi-functions large-scale physical model testing facility for studying the impact of debris flow on flexible barriers and geo-hazards in Hong Kong has recently received financial support of HK$8,208,881. 50% of that comes from the Research Grants Council Collaborative Research Fund, 25% from PolyU, with the remaining amount jointly split between the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development. Led by Prof. Yin Jianhua of the same department, the project will start on 30 June 2014 and will last three years. Together with collaborators from CityU, CUHK, HKU, and HKUST, the project includes the following aims:

(a) to make the facility a multi-functional platform for carrying out research works on common geo-hazards, (b) to study new technologies and methods for prevention or reduction of geo-hazards, (c) to test and verify existing and new monitoring technologies, and (d) to validate small-scale centrifugal models, numerical models, design methods by comparison.

The mitigation of geo-hazards will have a significant impact not only on fundamental research and technological advancement, but also on the safety of our communities and the protection of our living environment.

In an auspicious start to the new year, Dr Bo Wu of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics has received funding of RMB 800,000 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under its major research plan to focus on basic scientific issues and key areas of strategic importance to the nation. Designed to be a program cluster containing a number of innovative research projects, the plan allocates resources for research in specific areas, one of which is “Fundamental Theories and Key Technologies of Space Information Network.” Addressing the urgent need for development of national space information networks, including the optimization of dynamic network topology, high-speed information transmission, and multi-dimensional data fusion, Dr Wu’s project delves into the synergistic computation of multi-source remote sensing data, and will last 3 years from January 2014 to December 2016.

On 20 January 2014, the HKPolyU-Wuhan University Partner GNSS Research Center was officially established in an unveiling ceremony at the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI). Witnessed by PolyU’s Vice President (Research Development) Prof. Alex Wai and the former President of Wuhan University, Prof. Jingnan Liu, the ceremony was officiated by the Head of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, Prof. Xiaoli Ding.  Welcoming speeches were delivered by Prof. Albert Chan, interim Dean of the Faculty of Construction and Environment, and Prof. Xiangdong Li, Associate Dean (Research) of FCE. Attending the opening of this long-awaited center were Prof. Wu Chen and Dr George Zhizhao Liu.

With its cutting edge research, the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI) has formed a close partnership with Wuhan University, one of the top universities in mainland China. Over the past decades, the GNSS Research & Development Center of Wuhan University has been a national center of innovation in conducting research in Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The new partnership will further strengthen the collaboration in GNSS research between PolyU and Wuhan University.  It will provide an excellent platform for PolyU researchers to share and access the resources available in the mainland.

Taking advantage of modern satellite-based positioning and navigation technologies, GNSS can provide high precision Positioning, Navigation, Velocity and Timing (PNaVT) information anywhere on Earth and even in outer space. Together with the well known U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), the Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, the Russian GLONASS and the European Galileo system, GNSS are regarded as one of the most critical infrastructures for a nation.

Dr Jian-Guo Dai of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has been promoted to Associate Professor since July 2013. He has a PhD in Structural Engineering from Dalian University of Technology and another PhD in Socio-Environmental Engineering from Hokkaido University. His major research areas are fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites for construction and durability & life cycle management of concrete structures in marine environments. With more than 130 journal and international conference papers published in the above fields, Dr Dai is an active researcher who has received many awards for his work. Since joining PolyU in 2008, he has secured several external research grants (exceeding six million HK dollars) as a principle investigator, including three GRF, one NSFC, one ITF and some other grants from industry. At present, he is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Advances in Structural Engineering and a reviewer for over 30 international journals.

The following students have recently received funding from the One-year Top-up Studentship Scheme to pursue their PhD studies.

Lu Hua, a Semester One graduate in 2013/14 of one of our taught postgraduate programmes, has made good use of the entry scholarship he received in 2012/13 to learn more and strengthen his knowledge in civil engineering. He believes hard work is essential to make things possible. With his MSc degree, he plans to get his chartership in civil engineering next. He also hopes to lead a team to design and build some noteworthy projects in the future.

At a joint workshop with the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, a division of the Chinese Academy of Science (GIG-CAS) on 7 December 2013, the following research staff and students from the Faculty of Construction and Environment were honored for their outstanding presentations:

A group of RISUD researchers paid a visit to the State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science at the South China University of Technology (SCUT) in Guangzhou on 30-31 December 2013. Led by Prof. Jin-Guang Teng, Director of RISUD, the researchers met with their mainland counterparts to explore opportunities for research collaboration in areas of mutual interest, including urban planning and design, building environment and energy efficiency, as well as structures and safety. Among those presenting their latest research were Prof. Geoffrey Shen, Prof. Albert Chan, Prof. Edwin Chan, Prof. Xiaoli Ding, Prof. Hongxing Yang, Prof. Tao Wang, Dr Jianguo Dai, Dr Lin Lu, and Dr Fu Xiao.

It is hoped that a number of collaborative research projects can be launched after the visit, with funding support from RISUD and/or the State Key Laboratory.

On the afternoon of 11 January 2014, information seminars on various postgraduate programmes offered by the Faculty of Construction and Environment and its four departments were held at PolyU. Besides finding out the programme requirements of the courses they were interested in, prospective applicants also had a chance to have their questions answered by the programme coordinators. The eleven different sessions attracted a crowd of more than 280. Applicants with outstanding academic results may be considered for entry scholarships to support their studies. Early application is encouraged. More details can be found at www.polyu.edu.hk/study.

Applications are now invited for the following taught postgraduate programmes.

For details, please visit at http://www.polyu.edu.hk/fce/postgrad-scheme/acad.html

Master of Science (MSc)/Postgraduate Diploma (PgD) Building Services Engineering 屋宇設備工程學 Civil Engineering 土木工程學 Construction and Real Estate 建築及房地產學 Construction Law and Dispute Resolution 建築法及爭議解決學 Environmental Management and Engineering 環境管理及工程學 Facility Management 設施管理 Fire and Safety Engineering 消防及安全工程學 Geomatics (Geographic Information Systems) 測繪及地理資訊學(地理資訊) Geomatics (Surveying) 測繪及地理資訊學(測量) High Performance Buildings 高效能建築 Project Management 項目管理 Sustainable Urban Development 可持續城市發展學 For programme details, please visit http://www.polyu.edu.hk/study

FCE Public Lecture:
Building Information Modelling: Making Changes and Reshaping Western Australian Industry to Increase Productivity, Reduce Costs, and Boost Investment
Date & Time: 10 Feb 2014 (Mon), 11:00a.m. to 12:00p.m.
Venue: Room M1603, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Details: http://www.polyu.edu.hk/fce/events/20140210_lecture/