On the fourth of April, Jeroen Houben from Nelissen presented its company in a lunch lecture. In this lecture, he talked about different projects Nelissen are and were working on. One of these projects was a school, of which the temperature regulation was done by water from the river Maas.
We would like to thank Jeroen Houben and Nelissen for its time and interesting presentation!
On the 22nd of March, Mollier organized a bowling night at Megabowling Woensel. Some new bowling records were set, while some people’s scores hit an all-time low. It was a night full of laughter, frustration and a lot of ‘gezelligheid’. After the bowling night, most of our members went to Stratum for a drink.
We all hope the members had a great time and hopefully we see all of you at our next activity!
On the 14th of March, Bas Peeters and Rik Maaijen from Royal HaskoningDHV and Dennis van Goch from BAM visited us to provide us with a lunch lecture.
The representatives of Royal HaskoningDHV were presenting the possibilities of working at their company. They have an interesting ‘Young Professional Program’, in order to learn new employees soft skills such as personal branding, project management and selling techniques. Also, some distinctive projects where highlighted, such as the new Booking-campus Office building, where there were some acoustical challenges and discussions about the design of the building versus the thermal comfort. Another project of Royal HaskoningDHV is the cost optimality of Schiphol Airport, where there should be a balance of the sustainability and the business case.
The presentation of Dennis van Goch, the representative of BAM, was about smart energy management. A big project BAM has, is called ‘REnnovates’, which has a lot to do with smart energy. This project is an extension of ‘De Stroomversnelling’, a project where 111,000 residences are renovated in order to be classified as ‘nul-op-de-meter’. However, a challenge for this is the inequality of the energy demand and the energy generation. BAM says the solution will have to be found on a district-scale, not on individual housing scale.
We would like to thank Bas, Rik and Dennis for providing the lunch lecture.
The presentations of Royal HaskoningDHV and BAM can be viewed below:
20180314_Lunch Lecture #5 company RHDHV
Last week, on the 28th of February, our annual Meet and Greet took place. The Meet and Greet is very important to us, as Mollier tries to form a bridge between companies and students. We are therefore proud to say that 15 of our sponsors were present. This high amount of attending companies shows the good relationship between the companies and Mollier and that a lot of companies are interested in students from the Master ‘Building Physics and Services’.
The event started with an introduction by Gert-Jan, followed by pitches of the attending companies. Our main sponsors started the pitch session, followed by our other sponsors. Each pitch provided a good and quick overview of what the company does and what they are looking for. In the beginning, around 25 students (both national and international) were present. The pitches took around one hour and afterwards there was time to network. In total around 40 students attended the Meet and Greet, which we think was a great attendance.
We would like to thank our sponsors, for making time to network with us, and also the Meet and Greet committee that put a lot of hard work in making this day possible.
We are happy and proud of how the Meet and Greet 2018 turned out, and we hope to see all companies again next year!
On the 20th of February Mollier organized the BPS Campus Tour. This was for bachelor students with an interest in BPS and master students who are still orienting for a master project. We visited the BPS facilities and at every stop a PhD student or teacher told us something about what they do and what the possibilities are in their research group.
We started the tour in the SkyBar, where we left our bags, and then walked to the Alcodome (Koepel) on the other side of the campus. Here we found what seemed like an almost abandoned ghost site. There was an old wind tunnel and some buildings that have fallen into ruins and have been used by the fire department for fire drills. However, Karin Schollbach and Perry van der Wouw arrived and showed us that it was mostly used for the storage of concrete constituents but that there are also still experiments being conducted. There is a pulverizer and there is also space to do tests for concrete with military purposes, to see how well it can withstand an impact.
The next stop was the new wind tunnel, where Thijs van Druenen told us about the kinds of research they do. We could see what the wind tunnel looks like and Thijs explained us how it works. They were still improving the wind tunnel, as workers were taking it apart during our visit. They still need to make roughness elements to be able to simulate the atmospheric boundary layer which can be used to do urban measurements. Thijs told us that they expect to be ready after the summer. After this, master students will be able to use the wind tunnel for research projects.
Then we went to the acoustic laboratory ECHO where we had a presentation by Raúl Pegán Muñoz about all the current research that is being conducted in the acoustics field. They mainly do research in urban, building and room acoustics. We saw the acoustic lab with a coupled resonance chamber for measuring the acoustic properties of building materials and constructions.
We went to the roof of Vertigo, on the third floor, where Roel van Loonen showed us SolarBEAT. This is the solar research facility where new innovative building integrated photovoltaic products are analyzed. Roel also told us about the research in solar and photovoltaic panels that is being done by the chair of building performance. The research being done is to find solutions for energy generation, storage, distribution and demand reduction, and to integrate and optimize these in design, construction and operation of new and existing buildings. They do simulations and experiments and also facilitate this for companies.
Katarina Katik showed us the climate chamber, where simulations can be done on several environmental conditions. She did research on a thermophysiological model and the thermal response of the human body under various personal and environmental conditions. This is needed for designing HVAC systems and control systems in buildings. She told us about the research that could be done in the building services department.
After seeing the climate chamber, Karin Schollbach was eager to tell us more about the materials laboratory inside the Vertigo building, where most of the tests are being done and most of the equipment is. Here they research building materials and sustainable buildings. Through processing equipment, analysis, equipment air quality, equipment and concrete performance analysis all the new materials can be tested.
We also paid a visit to the daylight research facilities, where they have a diffuse sky simulator and direct sunlight simulator. The lab is being used to compare measurements with simulations and for the design of comfortable, healthy and energy efficient buildings.
Last but not least we also showed the group our Mollier office and gave them the latest issue of our INSide Information magazine, in which they can read some more about the research being done in our department.
Afterwards we had a small drink with the participants where we could talk some more about our unit and what we do during our master.
On the 20th of February, Mollier fought a battle of beer pong against KOers to decide which study association could call itself the righteous Beer Pong Master ’17-’18.
Many members of both associations volunteered to battle each other. Sometimes Mollier won a battle due to ultimate beer pong skills, however sometimes KOers had dumb luck and stole a victory from us. The final score was a draw for the battle between the members and the battle between the boards resulted in a major triumph for Mollier.
We would like to thank everyone for making it a fun and great activity, and we hereby challenge KOers to do better next year!
On the 7th of February we had an interesting lunch lecture with a guest speaker from ENGIE. ENGIE is one of the biggest technical suppliers of the Netherlands, but it is also situated in many other countries. It has around 6200 employees and a revenue of 1.1 billion in the Netherlands alone.
Maurice Adriaans, project manager at ENGIE Services, told us about the diverse work they do. From consultancy, project management, engineering, producing, installing, fine-tuning, maintenance, exploitation to facility management. They make an integral design with a focus on the installations, with innovative concepts and integral sustainable solutions. As an example he showed us the installations of cleanrooms at ASML. Afterwards Elise Vreeman, campus recruiter at ENGIE, explained the possibilities for working at ENGIE.
We would like to thank both Maurice and Elise for providing the lunch lecture.
For our members that want to take a look at the lecture slides again or that unfortunately missed the lunch lecture, the presentation can viewed here.
On the 28th of February, Mollier is organizing an informal Meet and Greet with almost all of its sponsors.
This is the opportunity to network with companies in the field of Building Physics and Services!
Click here for more information.
On the 5th of February, sixteen Mollier members were able to visit the laboratories of Peutz in Molenhoek, which is located in the most northern part of Limburg. When we arrived, Peutz had prepared a very nice lunch for us. After the lunch we were introduced to the company.
Casper Esmeijer, the director of Peutz, started the presentation by welcoming us and he explained a little bit about what Peutz does. Tim Weekenstroo continued the presentation and showed us some interesting projects they were working on, like the new railroad bridge across the A1, were they advised in the acoustical optimization of the bridge. Manon Derks, old treasurer and commissioner education of the 18th board of Mollier, talked about her daily activities at Peutz. Manon started working at Peutz just before our company visit of last year, and now works at Peutz for almost a year.
After the presentations, we were divided in two groups. One group was guided by Tim and the other group by Manon. We saw the rooms for acoustical measurements, were sound experiments are conducted. One of the rooms was an anechoic chamber, which means there is almost no reflection of sound. This was quite a strange experience. We also visited a storage room of enormous 1:10 scale models of some imposing theaters. These were used for acoustical experiments. We were also able to see the climate rooms, were experiments are conducted under extremely precise conditions.
We also visited the wind tunnel and even had the possibility to go inside. A lot of us were surprised by the enormous size of the space behind the actual test area. The picture below was taken in front of the fans of the wind tunnel, which shows how large it is.
Unfortunately, we were not able to visit the fire laboratory due to an experiment that was in process. However, we saw some videos of experiments during the presentation so we still had a good idea of what Peutz does in the field of fire safety.
We would like to thank Peutz for making the company visit possible and showing us the interesting facilities they have.
This year there will be another beer pong battle between the most fun of the study associations: KOers and Mollier! Click here for more information.
