Diponegoro University achieved another proud achievement. The Circle Daksha Team from the Faculty of Engineering, Diponegoro University (FT Undip) won 1st place in the National Concrete Competition category in Civil Carnival Competition 7.0. It was held by the Civil Engineering Student Association (HMTS) at Muhammadiyah University Purwokerto (UMP) from January 26 to June 8, 2023. The event occurred at the Badinguzaman Hall, Faculty of Engineering and Science, UMP, and was attended by 180 teams from various universities throughout Indonesia.
The Circle Daksha team consisting of Zulfa Izza Nugroho, Salsalbila Yowinda Putri, and Hilmy Ammar Albaihaqi managed to win this competition after bringing innovation in the form of using steel waste as a raw material for concrete that is environmentally friendly and high-pressure resistant. Steel waste ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) is a waste resulting from blast furnace combustion in steel production, which is often not utilized further by steel companies in Indonesia, so it has the potential to pollute the environment. Seeing this, the Circle Daksha Team innovated to use this waste to make concrete since GGBFS has physical properties resembling cement so that it can be used to make environmentally friendly concrete stronger than conventional concrete. “The advantage of our team is that this innovation (the use of GGBFS in making concrete) is still very minimally discussed in journals or further studied in Indonesia,” said Zulfa Izza Nugroho, team leader of Circle Daksha.
He also added in this competition, the participants were required to provide innovations that could create high-quality concrete with high compressive strength and easy application on a large scale. With the creation they offer, the Circle Daksha Team has succeeded in creating concrete with better quality and a more economical price compared to conventional concrete. “With the same proportion as conventional concrete, our concrete is stronger in compression and has much better properties than conventional concrete. Moreover, this concrete is easy to implement on a large scale, so it is more profitable because it is more economical and has better concrete properties,” he said.
Zulfa said that he and the team were very grateful for being able to win the competition this time. He expressed his gratitude for the support from the lecturers and the Technology and Materials Laboratory of the Department of Civil Engineering Undip for providing a lot of assistance in their preparation for participating in the competition this time. “We are very grateful because, after the several competitions we participated in before, we finally won 1st place. This cannot be separated from the support of the supervisor and the Technology and Materials Laboratory team, who have helped us a lot,” said the 2021 Civil Engineering student.
He hopes that with this victory, other engineering students can be motivated to dare to participate in competitions and not be afraid to fail so that they can gain new knowledge from this experience. “Don’t be afraid to fail because, from failure, we can learn various ways and loopholes to be used as team evaluations so they can be more solid in the future.”
