Co-sponsors of an international student competition on cold-formed steel design announced three winners from Virginia Tech University and the University of Waterloo in Canada. The 2013 International Student Competition on Cold-Formed Steel Design, hosted by the University of North Texas, promotes higher education in cold-formed steel structural design and encourages students to use creative thinking skills to solve engineering problems. Co-sponsors include the American Iron and Steel Institute, the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute, the National Science Foundation and the University of North Texas.

For this year’s competition, students were asked to design an open section shape for an 8-inch deep, 25-foot long flexural member that provides an adequate nominal bending strength and utilizes the least possible material. UNT received 55 entries from eight different institutions in Canada, China, Iran, Thailand and the United States.