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UCT Research Report '11
176
Doctoral graduations
T.H. Becker (Mechanical Engineering)
Understanding and modelling damage and fracture in
nuclear grade graphite.
Supervised by
Professor B. Tait
O.M. Bello (Electrical Engineering)
Multi-layer traffic engineering framework for inter-
working multi-hop wireless networks.
Supervised by
Professor H.A. Chan, Dr A. Bagula and
Dr O.E. Falowo
E.A. Beukes (Civil Engineering)
Context sensitive road planning for developing
countries.
Supervised by
Associate Professor M. Vanderschuren
N. Fischer (Chemical Engineering)
Preparation of nano and Ångstrøm sized cobalt
ensembles and their performance in the Fischer-
Tropsch synthesis.
Supervised by
Professor M. Claeys and Professor E.
van Steen
R.A. Govender (Mechanical Engineering)
Characterisation of glass fibre polypropylene and GFPP-
based fibre metal laminates at high strain rates.
Supervised by
Professor G. Nurick and Associate
Professor G.S. Langdon
M.J. Griffiths (Chemical Engineering)
Optimising microalgal lipid productivity for biodiesel
production.
Supervised by
Professor S.T.L. Harrison and Dr R. van Hille
D.S. Ikumi (Civil Engineering)
The development of a three-phase plantwide
mathematical model for sewage treatment.
Supervised by
Professor G.A. Ekama
K.I. Jacobs (Mechanical Engineering)
A new product development practices model for small
and medium engineering enterprises.
Supervised by
Professor J. Gryzagoridis
B.C. Kloot (Chemical Engineering)
A Bourdieuian analysis of foundation programmes within
the field of engineering education: Two South African
case studies.
Supervised by
Associate Professor J. Case and
Professor D. Marshall
L. Kotta (Chemical Engineering)
Structural conditioning and mediation by student agency:
A case study of success in chemical engineering design.
Supervised by
Associate Professor J. Case
profile collaboration network, with regular mutual visits
to Imperial College London, the Paul Scherrer Institute in
Switzerland and the Centre for Fuel Cell Technology (ZBT),
in Germany. During 2011, student visits took place to each
of these institutions.
Sustainable energy, innovation and challenges was the
theme of the South African Universities’ Power Engineering
Conference, which was hosted by the Department of
Electrical Engineering, the Institution of Engineering
Technology (UK), and IEEE Power and Energy Society.
The faculty has appointed three senior scholars to assist in
the mentoring of younger staff, and also to contribute to the
research agenda of the faculty. Furthermore, three to four
postdoctoral fellowships (per annum) have been made
available to increase the number of postdoctoral fellows in
the faculty. We believe that the role of postdoctoral fellows
is critical in promoting research performance. In order to
enhance the quality of research theses and dissertations,
but also to develop appropriate capacity in the faculty,
young academics will co-supervise research projects with
senior, more experienced supervisors.
One of the key strategies in the faculty is to develop a
critical mass of research excellence through its research
chairs. The faculty has embarked on an exercise of
increasing the number of dedicated research chairs and
building a core of postgraduate students, postdoctoral
fellows, and other researchers with sustainable funding
around them. Incentive funding has been earmarked to be
utilised strategically to ensure that active researchers have
more productive time to conduct research.
With the Faculty Research Committee’s firm commitment to
implementing its key research and innovation objectives,
a strong and exciting foundation has been laid to promote
and enhance research and innovation into the future.
Professor Francis Petersen
Dean of the Faculty of Engineering & the
Built Environment