Graduates engineers present project as part of 33rd Eng Design Exhibition
‘Kuwait Rail Associated Hazards’
KUWAIT CITY, March 14: The project “Kuwait Rail Associated Hazards” undertaken by graduate engineers Amal Al-Otaibi, Aisha Al-Enezi and Dalia Gad from Civil Engineering Department of College of Engineering and Petroleum at Kuwait University under the supervision of Dr. Walid Abdullah was among the college’s projects in the 33rd Engineering Design Exhibition.
In a press release issued by Kuwait University, Eng. Amal Al-Otaibi explained that the aim of the project is to establish a model for the assessment of geotechnical, geological and environmental hazards associated with the railway line that will be constructed in Kuwait.
The model detects sources, places and forms of hazards composition, studies their impacts, and designs a train that can adapt to the unexpected risks using GIS program. It works based on the layers of soil in Kuwait and then builds streets, residential areas, oil fields, agricultural areas, and landfills.
In the second phase, it builds a special map for areas in Kuwait that faces problems such as earthquakes, clay soil, coast erosion, landslip, and so on.
In the final phase, all maps are combined to form a colored map that is graded according to the level of hazards and all the problems they encounter when the railway line is added.
On her part, Eng. Aisha Al-Enezi said the project is flexible and can be applied to any large project in the country.
She stressed that applying the assessment model on the project saves huge sums of money spent by the state for maintenance purpose by identifying the problems before they occur in order to find the most suitable solution before casualties and material losses occur.
Eng. Dalia Gad said the members of the team hope to implement the idea of the model before establishing any project in Kuwait. She said it is considered as a preliminary study in the design stage before any construction starts.
The team of engineers faced many hurdles during their project. Some of the data to complete their project was confidential and was difficult to get without an official permit from official sources.