A tempus experience: New curriculum in sound and vibration control in Egypt

Abstract

The reduction of noise is of environmental and strategic importance for Egypt. Noise and acoustic annoyance is considered to be a dominant source of pollution within the Egyptian community. A need to develop and strengthen education and specialization in Sound and Vibration Control was therefore identified by Ain Shams University (ASU) in Cairo. The main objective was to produce a new generation of engineers capable of performing constructive research and development in the acoustics and vibrations field. They should be able to select the appropriate hardware to accurately measure acoustic parameters, perform experiments, to come up with better solutions, analyse and simulate acoustic changes and contribute to better understanding of the noise problem. This paper describes the activities of a project funded from the European Commission through the Tempus Program. The project was implemented at Ain Shams University in cooperation with KTH (the Royal Institute of Technology) in Sweden, and ISVR (the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research) in United Kingdom. The project addressed three levels of education: undergraduate, postgraduate students and engineers already working in the industry. The activities of the project included: Improving and updating the courses at ASU - Introducing new teaching methodologies aiming at elaborating more interaction between teachers and students - Establishing a new Sound and Vibration Laboratory. The main aim is to give all students the opportunity to do measurements themselves in order to get better feeling of different phenomena - Train the current teachers and university staff on the new courses, methodologies and equipment-Offer retraining and support for engineers working in the field of sound and vibration to update their. In addition to the main goals, other advantages followed. These include the establishment of the Acoustical Society of Egypt, close collaboration between consortium member universities, and strengthening the link between Egyptian Universities, industries and research institutions.