It has been more than a decade since the 1st initiative for research collaborations between the School of Mechanical Engineering (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering then) and the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Teknik Mesin), Fakultas Teknik Universitas Indonesia (FTUI). Time to refresh and strengthen the collaborations as many academics on both sides already retired or retiring soon.
This time, Prof. Normah Mohd Ghazali, who was amongst the 1st group of lecturers who visited FTUI, brought three junior academics from the School of Mechanical Engineering (SME), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in hope to continue the collaborations and perhaps make new ones.
From 7th to 10th September 2022, discussions on potential collaborations between the junior and senior ‘dosens’ from both institutions and visits to research laboratories were involved – TM has many impressive laboratories with indoor air quality, and refrigeration and air-conditioning experimental rigs among them.
The three junior lecturers from the School of Mechanical Engineering were given the opportunity to share their research works with the graduate students of TM. Two hours of presentations and Q & A passed by quickly where Dr. Natrah Kamaruzaman, Dr. Wong Keng Yinn, and Dr. Muhammad Faiz Hilmi Rani have managed to perk the interests of the students who were keen to know more about the current state of research in the areas of indoor air quality, microchannel heat sink, and thermal management system.
The Head of Department of TM, Prof. Dr. Agus Sunjarianto Pamitran and Prof. Idrus Al-Hamid have already established collaborations with the Air-Conditioning Engineering Research (ACER) Group at SME since many years ago – joint supervisions of graduate students and joint publications.
And through Prof. Normah, UI began its collaboration with Rennes University Institute of Technology together with a French businessman to develop a hotel in Bali/Lombok. The project has funding from the Indonesia-French Embassy.
Some potential collaborations have been identified by Dr. Natrah, Dr. Wong and Dr. Faiz with the ‘dosens’ from TM FTUI and they are already looking forward to a continuous networking into the future.