I am Pinta Astuti, from Indonesia. I pursued Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. Now I am studying in doctoral program at the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan under AUN/SEED-Net Dotoral Degree Program in Japan. Currently, I belong to the Concrete Engineering Laboratory and supervised by Professor Hidenori Hamada. My research is about infrastructure maintenance technique in deteriorated reinforced concrete structures by cathodic protection method.
On September 7-8, 2018, I got the best presentation award from presenting my research work “Potential Development of Sacrificial Anode Cathodic Protection Applied for Severely Damaged RC Beams Aged 44 Years”. The paper was published in the Journal of Thailand Concrete Association. In this paper, the sacrificial anode was applied to repair the corrosion condition of 44-year old reinforced concrete structures with salt damaged exposed in the severe marine environment. As we know, so many deteriorated structures located in marine environments such as port and bridge. Some maintenance methods are needed to repair the damaged structures such as cathodic protection to repair the corrosion damaged. This presentation topic is part of my doctoral research collaborating between Kyushu University and one of Japan construction company, P.S. Mitsubishi Construction, Co. Ltd.
During my first year of study in Japan, I got some valuable experiences and opportunities, such as how to build our network not only with researchers but also with the industrial sectors because my research is collaborating with construction company. Then, we will know what the actual global challenges and try to find the research topic according to the current issues. Moreover, as a doctoral student, we should prepare a scientific paper based on our research work and present in a conference or publish in the journal. On the other hand, I also join Japan Concrete Institute (JCI) as student member, an association of concrete engineer in Japan that have some activities such as, publication, annual convention, symposium, etc. It will help us to learn how to communicate with another researcher, build our network, and share our research experiences.
Since I am awardee of JICA project for AUN/SEED-Net, last August I also got the opportunity to join a summer program in Tokyo, entitled Understanding the Japanese Development Experience, organized by JICA. On there, I meet another JICA scholar from some countries. This program is beneficial to encouraging our knowledge because we could learn some relevant case from the history of Japan development and bring it to our home country.
Hopefully, after graduate from the doctoral course, I will continue doing research relating to infrastructures maintenance and become the university lecturer in Indonesia.
“Keep on doing and learning…”