The Fifth “Subote” Cup China College Student Concrete Mix Design Competition was held in the second campus of Harbin Institute of Technology from July 20th to 22nd, 2018. The competition was organized by joint forces of the Inorganic Nonmetallic Materials Advisory Board under the Ministry of Education, China Concrete and Cement-based Products Association, IHEs Building Material Board and Harbin Institute of Technology.

Prof. Peng, Yuankui, the President Assistant of Harbin Institute of Technology gave a welcome speech. He said that China had entered into a new era of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, so had the transportation industry. The new era had led us to a new historic point with more opportunities and challenges than ever, which required us to acquire higher levels of strategic thinking, new ideology, and new capability. The new era led us to transform our nation from “transportation giant” to “transportation power”, from “adapting to development” to “promoting development”, from “high-speed growth” to “high-quality growth”, from “domestic development” to “global expansion”. Now that the trumpet to develop “transportation power” is on, it was significant to hold the China College Student Concrete Mix Design Competition at this moment. This competition would provide a practical platform for college students and encourage them to create and innovate, help them to cultivate their scientific spirit and professions, and improve their ability to implement knowledge to engineering practices. At the end, he said the competition would definitely prompt the scholar activities and scientific communication between universities and colleges. 

Mr. Xu, Yongmo, the Executive President of China Concrete and Cement-based Products Association said that You Lu, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty once wrote a poem saying, “Ancient people spared no efforts to learn; Until ages of hard work could they eventually know; Knowledge from books is forever shallow; Only real practice lead people to truth.” The modern educator, Xingzhi Tao also raised a widely-accepted opinion that education was a combination of learning and practice. The competition today was a precious practice for students to combine their learning and practice, to apply the knowledge on real problems, and to ponder the secret of cement concrete material. He also encouraged students to release their innovation and go beyond concepts imposed by tutorials and wished every student to participate and get an outstanding achievement during the competition.

Prof. Wang Yan, the representative from Inorganic Nonmetallic Materials Advisory Board under the Ministry of Education also gave a speech. She said that the Ministry of Education had always thought highly of the competition and had participated in the propaganda and organization from the third year. At its birth, concrete took a major role among construction materials due to its wide availability and low cost. However, evolving formats of structures required higher performance out of concrete, thus prompting the invention of bending concrete, ultra high performance concrete and self-healing concrete, etc. Concrete, as a most traditional construction material was no longer traditional any more. At the same time, with the deprivation of natural stone and sand, the development of concrete technology was being challenged. In this competition, the students would have to mix concrete using manufactured sand, which was an embodiment of such challenges. 

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here were 135 teams from 76 colleges to participate in the competition this year, the largest scale ever. The organizer also received 28 pieces of innovative works made by cement-based composite materials to show and compete for awards. The design theme was C35 concrete with high rheology using manufactured sand proportioned according to high durability principal, and also taking engineering application and economy into consideration. 

After two days of test, concrete proportioning design and on-site mixing practices, the Harbin Institute of Technology 2nd Team, University of Science and Technology Beijing 1st Team, Shandong Jianzhu University 1st Team and Wuhan University of Technology 2nd Team were awarded as the Outstanding Group. Sha Wang from Harbin Institute of Technology was awarded as Outstanding Individual. 

Harbin Institute of Technology 1st Team, South China University of Technology Material College Team, Shenzhen University 2nd Team, Southeast University 1st Team, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture 2nd Team, Lanzhou University of Technology 1st Team, Tongji University 1st Team, Jiaxing University, University of Science and Technology Beijing 2nd Team were awarded Team First Prize.