international cooperation
Expanding international cooperation has always been one of the major goals of the Department of Civil Engineering. Recruiting graduates from the world top-ranked universities as faculty members as well as encouraging and supporting faculty members and graduate students to take sabbatical have been key steps towards this goal.The joint Bachelor's degree program with Wuppertal University (Germany) from 2004 to 2011 is one of the outstanding activities of this Department in expanding international cooperation.
The international cooperation office of the department, administrated by Dr. Milad Aminzadeh, collaborates closely with the International and Scientific Cooperation Office of IUT (ISCO) in conducting various tasks such as planning and informing international calls, following-up memoranda of understanding between the department and foreign institutions, reflecting the cooperation of faculty members and graduate students during their sabbatical leave and other related affairs.
The Research and Development Project “Integrated Water Resources Management of Zayandeh Rud Catchment” by Prof. Safavi and Dr. Golmohammadi
The Research and Development Project “Integrated Water Resources Management of Zayandeh Rud Catchment”
The water management challenges in the Zayandeh Rud catchment are merely symbolizing the similar issues all throughout the country. Within the “IWRM Zayandeh Rud” research project, Iranian and German partners have been developing and implementing a generally accepted water management concept for the entire catchment. Both partner countries combine their expertise to make water use along the river sustainable and to balance the competing interests of diverse water users.
This project is aimed at proposing options for integrated water management in Iran and the entire region using the example of the Zayandeh Rud catchment. The project team has been striving to pursue this goal from 2010 to 2017. A necessary precondition for IWRM is that the concerning provinces, sectors and national institutions relevant actors become cognizant that they do not only sit in one boat, but also have to row in the same direction. IWRM requires discussion and agreement on the measures to be taken and to cooperate in achieving a common goal. Accordingly, a project structure was developed that involved all relevant stakeholders and water using sectors.
The project has been accomplished by Prof. Safavi and Dr. Golmohammadi (Department of Civil Engineering of IUT) and his team from other departments of IUT and Dr. Mohajeri (Inter3 Co.) and his team from Germany.
Dr. Keyvan Asghari took his sabbatical leave from July 2018 to April 2019 in Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
Dr. Keyvan Asghari took his sabbatical leave from July 2018 to April 2019 in Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Utah State University, Logan, Utah, United States. Within this 10-month period, he has been involved in various studies and projects. Concerning the hydrologic process, they modelled specific water quality parameters to estimate the quality of water entering a downstream reservoir. More to this, they evaluated the impact of future climate change on the quality of water discharged from the basin accompanied by one of his graduate students from IUT and consequently a paper was presented on this subject at the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) Conference, on June 11th-13th, 2019.
As a relatively new global topic addressing the seasonal runoff issues by reducing and treating stormwater at its source while delivering environmental, social, and economic benefits, he has been involved in another project to evaluate the effects of Green Infrastructure (GI) on urban runoff and groundwater storage enhancement. Part of this research was assigned as the thesis topic to one of his graduate students in Iran. An abstract was submitted on this subject at EWRI-ASCE, International Low Impact Development Conference, July 19th-22nd, 2020. Add to his studies, he analyzed the climate change data generated by regional climate change models. This project procedures and results predicted the impact of climate change scenarios on future water availability. The study tools and its results provided a wide range of applications in his future projects. It is noteworthy to mention that he attended numerous interdisciplinary project meetings and participated two graduate courses pertinent to climate systems and modeling.
Niloufar Moshiri, a PhD candidate in Structural Engineering, has been on the sabbatical leave at Empa institute, Switzerland
Niloufar Moshiri, a PhD candidate in Structural Engineering, has been on the sabbatical leave at Empa institute, Switzerland (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology), for 15 months. Through this period (2017-2018), she advanced her dissertation, experimentally and analytically. She has investigated the effect of EBROG method on bond behavior of prestressed CFRP strips to concrete under supervision of Prof. Mostofinejad and Prof. Azhari (Isfahan University of Technology) and Prof. Motavalli (University of Tehran and Empa institute). Additionally, her daily supervisor at Empa was Dr. Czaderski. More to her sabbatical leave, she has successfully published scientific papers in ISI journals and international conferences (CICE2018, SMAR2019). In order to take her sabbatical leave, she has received scholarships from the Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Iranian National Elite Foundation, Isfahan University of Technology, Empa institute, and Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW, leading house for research collaboration with partner institutions in Iran and South Asia).
Iman Chakraei, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering-Water Resources Management was at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Iman Chakraei, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering-Water Resources Management was on sabbatical leave for six months at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He delved into developing an integrated simulation-optimization model for water resources allocation under the supervision of Prof. Graeme Dandy.
Hamid Mortazavi, a PhD candidate in Civil Engineering-Geotechnics, at University of New South Wales, Australia, in 2018
Hamid Mortazavi, a PhD candidate in Civil Engineering-Geotechnics, pursued his studies under the supervision of Dr. Halabian, Dr. Hashemolhosseini and Dr. Roshanzamir. Having an all-cone pressure device designed and developed at Isfahan University of Technology, he took his sabbatical leave under the supervision of Prof. Khalili at University of New South Wales, Australia, in 2018. His investigations throughout that year were pertinent to axial behavior of tapering screwed pile foundations.
Hajar Share-Esfahani, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering- Geotechnics at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney (UTS),
Hajar Share-Esfahani, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering- Geotechnics took her sabbatical leave at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia from December 2017 to June 2018. Under the supervision of Dr. Hadi Khabbaz, she conducted a critical literature review, visited a research site and consequently accomplished a numerical investigation on “Soil improvement methods for construction of transport infrastructure on the top of closed landfill sites”.
Mehrdad Khoshui-Esfahani, a Ph.D. candidate in Civil Engineering-Water Resources Management, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia
Mehrdad Khoshui-Esfahani, a Ph.D. candidate in Civil Engineering-Water Resources Management, took his sabbatical leave at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. During these 6 months, from December 2016 to July 2017, he carried out studies on drought and sustainability indicators of water resources under supervision of Dr. Ashish Sharma. It is noteworthy to mention that he has published two ISI papers in “Journal of Hydrologic Engineering” and “Journal of Hydrology”.
Ala Torabian-Esfahani pursued her PhD dissertation studies in department of Civil Engineering, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal from March 2018 to March 2019.
Ala Torabian-Esfahani pursued her PhD dissertation studies in department of Civil Engineering, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Portugal from March 2018 to March 2019. Within this period, she collaborated with the group of Prof. Pinho Ramos and studied the behavior of flat slabs. Conducting several experimental tests and analytical studies were also accomplished during her sabbatical leave.
Elham Jafarzadeh took her 6-month sabbatical leave at the University of Rhode Island, South Kingstown, United States in November 2018
Elham Jafarzadeh took her 6-month sabbatical leave at the University of Rhode Island, South Kingstown, United States in November 2018. All through this period, she worked with professor Grilli and Dr. Hashemi in Marine Engineering Faculty collaborating on organizational projects including numerical programming of wave generator and laboratory model testing. Moreover, she has been specially trained in numerical boundary element method by Professor Grilli for modeling disparate hydraulic sea conditions and offshore structures
Farid Askarinejad, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering-Geotechnics, accomplished his research internship at Geotechnical Engineering Lab, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan from October 2018 to March 2019
Farid Askarinejad, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering-Geotechnics, accomplished his research internship at Geotechnical Engineering Lab, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan from October 2018 to March 2019, under the supervision of Prof. Junichi Koseki. In the course of sabbatical leave, he conducted studies on modeling time-dependent behavior of soils mixed with gypsum and cement on the basis of bounding surface plasticity model. Furthermore, he carried out several cyclic undrained triaxial tests on “Toyoura sand” subjected to stepwise frequency changes in successive cycles to assess viscous behavior of sand in diverse void ratios. He has been certified by Prof. Junichi Koseki in fulfilling the research internship goals as a diligent student.
Sajad Enteshari, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering-Water Resources was on sabbatical leave at IHE Delft Institute, Delft, Netherlands in 2017
Sajad Enteshari, a PhD candidate of Civil Engineering-Water Resources was on sabbatical leave at IHE Delft Institute, Delft, Netherlands in 2017. He pursued his studies at Integrated Water Systems and Governance Faculty and attended different courses including “Water Accounting”, “Integrated Water Resources Management”, “Science Philosophy” and “Water Governance”. In addition, he regularly visited three faculty members in related fields of water managements, water systems, and irrigation management and discussed over Zayandeh Rud basin