African Engineers: Cecilia Apawu

Cecilia Apawu graduated from the School of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, in 1989, with a Bachelor’s degree in Mining and Mineral Engineering. She was the first woman to earn this degree at a time when the number of women studying engineering was no more than five in a class of two hundred. Like all seniors, Cecilia spent much of the year on a hands-on research project and chose to work with Suame’s Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit (ITTU) studying the work of traditional aluminum pot casters. The knowledge she gained and the improvements she devised helped her play a leading role in the development of the grassroots foundry industry in other parts of Ghana.

Smelting of large spherical aluminum cooking pots is said to have started in Bolgatanga in Ghana’s Upper East Region but has spread to various other parts of the country, including Suame Magazine in Kumasi, Ghana’s largest informal industrial zone. Ghana and the home at the turn of the 21st century of more than 100,000 artisans. Cecilia knew the aluminum pot smelters in Suame, but in her first professional assignment she worked at Tema ITTU, upgrading the work of the foundry men based in Ashiaman, Tema’s twin city.

The potters use as their pattern an imported iron pot cut in two halves along the Greenwich meridian. The mold is made of sand. Scrap aluminum of all kinds is melted down in a coal-fired furnace and poured into the mold. After cooling, the mold is opened to remove the molten pot. When Cecilia began her work at Ashiaman, the artisans were achieving a 70 percent success rate. Cecilia set out to find out why the other 30 percent of castings fail and how the success rate could be improved.

With the help of Charles Ashun, a veteran technician with Tema-based Kaiser Engineering’s Volta Aluminum Company, Cecilia studied all aspects of aluminum casting. As is always the case in this type of situation, it took a few months before the Tema ITTU foundry could demonstrate a higher success rate than the informal sector artisans, but when that point was reached a training program was established and he showed the artisans how they could achieve it. more consistent results. An important factor was the correct selection of aluminum scrap, as some types are not suitable for remelting. Other improvements related to the selection and preparation of the sand and the mold, and the control of the pouring temperature of the molten aluminium.

Cecilia demonstrated that Ghanaian women can engineer as well as men when given the same opportunities. Her presence at the ITTU and the good work she put into it did much to encourage other women and change the attitudes of men. She played a prominent role in Ghana’s “Women in Engineering Program” in the mid-1990s. This short account of her early work is published in the hope that it will help encourage other young women to consider a career in engineering. engineering and apply their skills in the economic development of their country, upwards from the grassroots.

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