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Port engineering gets tertiary pathway

By ALISTAIR JONES, Weekend Australian

Saturday, December 3, 2011

'PORT engineering is the oldest engineering application in the world' Swinburne University of Technology course convenor Alex Babanin says.

Yet until now, port engineering has had no specialist, tertiary qualification in Australia.

In 2012, Babanin will lead Swinbume's new graduate certificate in engineering (ports and harbour). The our-unit program features a one-week oncampus intensive for each subject with assignments and assessments completed online.

Candidates will gain expertise in a variety of port and harbour engineering applications, including dredging, port access and navigation, and port structural design. An understanding of the problems of working in wet, salty conditions will underly skills essential for construction and maintenance in maritime and port environments.

The course is a subset of Swinbume's civil engineering program. "Civil engineering is basically structural engineering and, of course, there is structural engineering in ports but it has its own (requirements), such as heavy-duty pavements and walkways (that can) handle machinery weighing hundreds of tonnes," Babanin says.

'Ports are booming but whether we can compete with the attractive remuneration packages being offered as part of the commodities boom is another matter'

SUSAN FRYDA-BLACKWELL (PORTS AUSTRALIA CHIEF EXECUTIVE)

 

"Then you have to build structures that (are on piles) drilled through the ocean bottom. The ocean bottom is not stable; it's covered in sediment (that) moves under the action of waves and currents. Civil engineering classes simply don't cover this. (It's closer) to coastal engineering, which deals particularly with the motion of sediment, but coastal engineering doesn't deal with building a construction on that sediment."

The program has a strong industry engagement with specialists from more than 10 Australian companies teaching
in the program, and there is also international input.
"The dredging engineering subject will be taught and sponsored by (Dutch firm) Boskalis, one of the world's leading dredging companies," Babanin says. "Students will also have access to industry software and highly relevant case studies."

Swinburne will seek professional recognition for the program from Ports Australia, but this should be
straightforward. Ports Australia chief executive Susan Fryda-Blackwell says it initiated the development of the course subjects, a process that has taken some years.

"We have a working group of engineers and they (were) saying, 'We're not recognised. Nobody teaches us what we need to know'. No course covered (engineering) from a port perspective, so we went to the institutions where most of the engineers had come from and (it was) Swinburne (that) took it up very eagerly," Fryda-Blackwell says.
"We sat down and developed outlines of courses, things that we wanted covered, things that the engineers (in the group) felt they either wanted to be refreshed on or taught. (Then) we worked gradually with Swinburne to work up four subjects." Fryda-Blackwell points out that engineers who can meet the entrance requirements could sign up for any of the four units without aiming to achieve the formal qualification.

"You don't have to get the recognition at the end; you can just go along and do the (subjects) and take notes. You don't have to do the essays or the exams," she says. And if Swinburne were to seek industry placements for internal students taking the subjects as electives, this should be no problem.

"I'm sure the ports would facilitate that because getting people to work in ports as opposed to the mines is always a challenge," Fryda- Blackwell says.

"Ports are booming, but whether we can compete with the attractive remuneration packages being offered as part of the commodities boom is another matter."

Ports Australia represents the interests of port and marine authorities in Australia. All government-owned ports, some privatised ports and most state marine regulatory authorities are members, as is the Department of Defence, through the Royal Australian Navy.