Adriano Silva de Carvalho (State University of Maringá, Department of Civil Engineering) as the first prize winner of DOSS Award 2024 with his master thesis on Assessment of the lateral-torsional stability of steel I-beams with sequential sinusoidal web openings. Adriano received 43% of the votes from the expert jury.

With 29% of the jury’ votes, Stefan Kimpeler gained the second prize for his graduation work Data-based asset management of a T-beam bridge with orthotropic deck plate exemplified by the motorway bridge at the Dortmund-Unna motorway intersection at the RWTH Aachen, Institute of Steel Construction.

Audience winner

Next to the second prize from the jury, Stefan Kimpeler was also chosen the audience winner of this years’ DOSS Award by the 219 attendants at the ceremony. Out of the 219 votes Stefan acquired 74 votes (34%). He was closely followed by Manabendra Nath Das with 71 votes. Erzsébet Bärnkopf came in third with 52 votes.

The DOSS Award 2024 stood open for participation by master students who graduated between 1^st January and 31^st December 2023 at technical universities worldwide. All winners, nominees and submissions are presented at www.dossaward.com. Of each graduation project a separate page is available, offering downloads of a project-summary and the complete master thesis.

The DOSS Award is organised by TU Delft (Delft University of Technology) and Bouwen met Staal (Dutch Steelconstruction Institute) and supported by the European Convention for Constructional Steelwork (ECCS CECM EKS), Samenwerkende Nederlandse Staalbouw (SNS), the Dutch organisation for steel construction firms), Severfield, Voortman Steel Group, Zeman and Bouwen met Staal as publisher of the international Steel Design series.

Every year, the DOSS Award assigns recognition and appreciation to graduation projects which incorporate and represent the features and benefits of steel for structural application. Participating projects can be related to engineering or research as well as product development or a combination of these.

• Photos: the second prize winner of the DOSS Award 2023: Flange Buckling Behavior of Stainless Steel Girders with Trapezoidally Corrugated Webs – A parametric numerical study, by Alaa Achour & Ziad Mlli (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (S), Architecture and Civil Engineering.

This year the DOSS Award celebrates its fourth edition, amounting in 22 submissions by master students who have graduated between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023. Out of these submissions an international expert jury will appoint the nominees for the prize.

At the online ceremony each of the nominees will give a personal elucidation on their graduation work. Following these presentations, the winner(s) of the DOSS Award 2024, elected by the jury, will be announced.

• The DOSS Award 2024 ceremony can be attended for free. You can join in by pressing this participation link.

After closure of registration, a professional jury will study and judge all entries. On Monday 22^th April they will vote the winner(s) of the DOSS Award 2024 during a special online ceremony, organized by TU Delft and Bouwen met Staal. Preceding the announcement of the winner(s), all nominees for the prize will be able to give a personal elucidation on their master thesis.

The program of the event and a link for free participation will soon be published on this website.

Filip is accompanied by two (or rather three) second prize winners: Yasser Nasr Ibrahim Mostafa Saleh (Cairo University, Structural Engineering) and the graduation-couple Alaa Achour and Ziad Mlli (both from the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg (S), Architecture and Civil Engineering).

Next to these jury-winners, Massimino Gnazzo (University of Naples Federico II, Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture) has been chosen audience winner DOSS Award 2023. He acquired 31% of the votes by the visitors of the online final on 24^th April.

• All winners, nominees and submissions for the DOSS Award 2023 are presented at www.dossaward.com. Of all participating graduation projects a separate page is available on the website, offering downloads of the project-summary by the master student concerned and the complete master thesis.

Out of no less than 25 entrees the DOSS Award jury has selected six projects as nominees for the DOSS Award 2023. The winner will be announced at the online DOSS Award 2023 Final Ceremony, Monday 23 April 2023. A program of the event will be published shortly.

All 25 projects, participating in this years’ edition of the DOSS Award, are from master students who last year graduated in civil engineering at a technical university somewhere in the world. Each graduation project holds, in its own distinctive way, some of the familiar or maybe yet unknown qualities of steel for structural application.

The international expert jury has measured all projects on issues like originality and aesthetics, creativity and ingenuity, thoroughness, and context. Special attention has been paid to the perspectives, incorporated in the master thesis, for innovative and (improved) sustainable use of steel in civil structures,

The six nominees are presented here.

The full dissertations as well as short summaries of all 25 submissions for the DOSS Award 2023 are available here.

They published an informative article – in Dutch – about the 2022-edition of the prize, including descriptions of all six nominated and winning projects. The article was issued in the June-edition of the two-montly magazine. Here it’s made available for free download as PDF.

Stefan Megnet has been rewarded for his graduation project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), faculty of Structural Engineering. He conducted a series of four-point bending tests to investigate the influence of the strain-hardening on the bending strength and rotation capacity of welded I-section beams. The results of these research were deployed to validate numerical models and put in use to re-evaluate the cross-sectional classification according to Eurocode 3 and the rules for design against local buckling.

Stefan shares the winning honours with Nils Rittich. Nils graduated at the RWTH Aachen University with a thesis on the numerical investigations of preloading procedures of bolted assemblies. Nils carried out these investigations of the modified torque method (to achieve a general level of preloading, as well as the combined method (to gain a minimal level of preloading). He evaluated various parameters and tightening conditions and assessed their influence. Based on the research, recommendations are supplied for future analysis, including additional methods for calculating connections.

Both winners were announced and venerated at a well-attended online ceremony, last Thursday 21th April. They were selected by an international professional jury, out of 23 submissions by master students, graduated between 1 March 2021 and 1 March 2022 at various technical universities from all over the world.

The DOSS Award is an initiative of Delft University of Technology and Bouwen met Staal (Dutch Steel Construction Institute). It aims public recognition and appreciation to graduation projects which incorporate and represent the features and benefits of steel for structural application. Submitted thesis can relate to engineering and research as well as product development or a combination of these.

The annual DOSS Award is supported by SNS (Samenwerkende Nederlandse Staalbouw), ECCS, Severfield, Zeman, Voortman Steel Group and Steel Design Series.

• Download master thesis Stefan Megnet

• Download master thesis Nils Rittich