Innovative highway interchange design and an ingenious hybrid wastewater treatment solution were among the winning projects at this year’s SAICE National Project Awards, held last Thursday at the Durban ICC Arena.

Having won an award at the CESA Aon Engineering Excellence Awards earlier this year, the KwaMashu Interchange Upgrade was announced  joint winner in the Technical Excellence category, at the annual SAICE, whilst the Malmesbury Wastewater Treatment Works in the Western Cape received a commendation in the same category.

SAICE National Project Awards 2014
Leading engineering company, Aurecon, were involved in both of these projects, whilst the company’s Dr Eduard Vorster, (Expertise Leader, Ground Engineering) was joint winner of the SAICE 2014 Engineer of the Year award. This award recognises a current SAICE Member who has demonstrated outstanding dedication to their fellow members, the Institution, the profession and local community. The annual SAICE National Project Awards give recognition to well-engineered civil projects that portray the art and science of civil engineering to the general public and aim to publicise how the profession finds answers to challenging problems (www.saice.org.za).

Diverging Diamond Interchange
The pioneering conversion of the standard diamond KwaMashu interchange to an innovative diverging diamond layout  provided a low cost, effective means to enhance interchange capacity and safety. It is the first application of a diverging diamond interchange (DDI) in the southern hemisphere. A DDI is a unique interchange layout in which vehicles on an overpass or underpass crossroad at the interchange briefly cross over at a two-phase, signalised intersection to drive on the opposite (‘wrong’) side of the road, allowing free and unopposed right and left turns to and from the freeway ramps. After crossing over or under the freeway, the vehicles return to their normal left-hand lane.

Membrane Bioreactor Hybrid System                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     The Malmesbury Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW) treats wastewater from Malmesbury, a rapidly growing town to the north-east of Cape Town. The original WWTW was overloaded and discharged substandard effluent into the nearby Diep River, exacerbated by periodic sludge spillages. The Department of Water Affairs withheld consent for new developments in this municipal area until the problem was resolved. Aurecon proposed an innovative solution using a membrane bioreactor (MBR) and designed an ingenious hybrid system, incorporating the existing treatment works. The hybrid system made the use of MBR technology viable from a cost perspective and allowed the responsible operator, the Swartland Municipality, to reuse the full dry weather flow.

At the time of project approval, there was only one MBR for a municipal WWTW that had been constructed in South Africa and it had still to be fully commissioned.

Dr Eduard Vorster                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Dr Eduard Vorster has experience in the installation and interpretation of novel wireless and fibre optic sensor technologies. He has participated and led teams of researchers installing such sensors in pile foundations, onto pipelines and inside existing tunnels. He supplemented his geotechnical and monitoring experience by gaining project management and documentation experience in Aurecon’s transportation division. Dr Vorster was involved in driving several pre-qualification processes for the operation and maintenance of toll road projects, compilation of operation and maintenance documentation. In addition, he helped coordinate specialist design inputs between the client and concessionaire as part of the Independent Engineer on the Platinum Toll Highway. He also compiled operations and maintenance documentation for the Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport.

“SAICE awards are highly recognised in the industry and are a good measure of technical excellence. As such, they are also a good measure of the level of technical service we provide our clients and Aurecon’s ability to serve our clients’ best interests,” said Albert Geldenhuys, Managing Director, Aurecon South Africa.

“We are humbled by the fact that our dedication and commitment to these aims are being recognised,” concludes Geldenhuys.