Best Paper Award at APL 2023

Dr Chua with his award certificate

UTAR Centre for Railway Infrastructure and Engineering (CRIE) Chairperson Assoc Prof Ir Dr Chua Kein Huat and his team were ecstatic when their paper titled “Common mistakes on lightning protection design and installation” was awarded Best Paper Award under the “Lightning Protection Applications” track at the 12th Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning (APL 2023), held in Langkawi, Kedah from 12 to 15 June 2023.

The paper was co-authored by Lee Kong Chain Faculty of Engineering and Science (LKC FES) academic Dr Hau Lee Cheun, TAKO Astatic Technology Sdn Bhd Manager Steven Chia, IED Sdn Bhd Consultant Ir Lim Kim Ten, TAKO Astatic Technology Sdn Bhd CEO Dr Albert Kow Kek Hing and PhD student Hoo Dick Sang from UTAR LKC FES.

The award-winning paper highlighted some common mistakes in the design and installation of lightning protection systems, emphasising their severe consequences for buildings and occupants. The paper also proposed some remedial actions to address these mistakes. The paper concluded by stressing the importance of hiring qualified professionals for designing and installing lightning protection systems to ensure proper implementation.

This research is supported by TAKO Astatic Technology Sdn Bhd and UTAR CRIE. Besides providing funding and technical support for this research, TAKO Astatic Technology Sdn Bhd also provided full sponsorship for the participation of Dr Chua and Dr Hau at the conference as part of the industry collaboration between TAKO Astatic Technology Sdn Bhd and UTAR.

The APL, which started in Beijing in 2003, is a bi-annual lightning conference organised in Asia-Pacific Region. The conference features keynote sessions, technical paper presentations and technical exhibitions on emerging technologies in the field of lightning discharge and lightning protection. APL 2023 was organised by IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Malaysia Chapter. The conference saw the submission of 135 papers from 18 countries. The submitted papers were carefully reviewed by a group of international panels.