Project to improve the research infrastructure at the São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC-USP)

Abstract

The São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC-USP) currently has 9 Departments: Hydraulic and Sanitation Engineering, Structural Engineering (Civil), Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Transport Engineering, Production Engineering, Materials Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering and the Geotechnics department; with 5 Centers: CETEPE - Center for Educational Technology for Engineering, CRHEA - Center for Water Resources and Applied Ecology, CEAS - Center for Engineering Applied to Health, EESCIn - EESC Advanced Center for Supporting Innovation and a Library and Robotics Center. EESC offers 10 undergraduate courses and has 11 Postgraduate Programs, 4 of which are considered to be of excellence (concept 6 or 7) in the last CAPES Assessment.Its infrastructure consists of laboratories, classrooms, amphitheaters, centers and centers, library, computer and administrative sectors that total approximately 71 thousand square meters of built area, distributed among the 73 buildings located in 3 different areas, two areas in city of São Carlos and an area in the city of Itirapina. The EESC facilities are home to more than 90 research laboratories, occupying more than 20 thousand square meters of built area, and serve more than 1,000 graduate students, in addition to undergraduate students conducting scientific initiation research, and almost 180 School teachers. Over the years, these research laboratories have received important support from FAPESP and other national and international research promotion agencies and public and private companies for the acquisition and maintenance of equipment, adequacy of physical area and infrastructure, in addition to funding and scholarships for research students.In the last few years, EESC has been investing heavily in improving the quality and security of computer services, used by all EESC researchers, either with the Unit's own budget resources or with resources from the Information Technology Superintendence (STI-USP ) of the University of São Paulo, either with funds from funding agencies, such as FAPESP's Technical Reserve for Institutional Research Infrastructure (RTI). Among some examples of investments in information technology that have received resources from FAPESP in recent years, the following could be mentioned: acquisition, installation and expansion of the HP BladeSystem C7000 Server; expansion and improvement of the Wi-Fi signal coverage of the USPnet wireless network in the various buildings of EESC; modernization of the active equipment of the local networks (switches, router and firewall) of EESC and its devices that complement the local network (nobreaks, access points, IP monitoring cameras, access control, VoIP telephony, etc.); among others. This entire IT infrastructure requires an adequately air-conditioned environment for servers, routers, firewalls, UPSs, among other resources to work continuously and without risk of failure due to overheating. Thus, to maintain the smooth functioning of this IT infrastructure, technical support for the maintenance of the HP BladeSystem C7000 Server is required, the acquisition of new antennas and the modernization of the air conditioning system in the server rooms and equipment UPS appropriate for this type of use.Another demand related to our research infrastructure is the implementation of adaptation of the installations for the protection systems against atmospheric discharge (SPDA) of several research laboratories. This demand stems from a technical diagnosis of these facilities and subsequent contracting of an electrical project for necessary adjustments. Both initiatives were funded with resources from RTI FAPESP (processes 2017 / 24007-7 and 2018 / 23964-9).A third demand concerns the infrastructure of the Library's auditoriums used for scientific dissemination events. With resources from RTI-FAPESP last year (process no 2019 / 25194-9) these auditoriums are being modernized. (AU)