All posts by Justin Sorrenti

Final Mix

The table below outlines the various components of our final mix and their proportions.

Material TypeMaterial NameWeight (lbs)
Cementitious MaterialsPortland Cement (Type I)0.341
Slag Cement0.643
Silica Fume0.103
AggregatesLS300 Cenospheres0.530
Poraver (0.5-1.0 mm)0.585
WaterWater0.523
Sikament 686 (SP)0.030
Sika Air (AE)0.023

Mix Day!

After countless hours of design, construction, and testing, we were able to successfully cast our canoe on 2/24. We’d like to once again thank our sponsors and donors for allowing us to take part in this project.

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Winter Break Update

Our main goals for winter break were construction oriented. Our first task was designing and building a table to build our form on.

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Next, we created our mold’s cross sections in AutoCAD and printed them out full-scale in order to cut each plywood cross-section using a bandsaw. Each cross-section was then centered on our table using a laser level in one foot increments.

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In order to create the actual canoe hull, one inch strips of lauan were placed along the cross-sections and attached using a nail gun. To cap the ends of the canoe, Styrofoam blocks were formed into the appropriate shapes and connected to the endmost cross-sections.

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Mix Designs 3 and 4

Material quantities for our third and fourth mix designs are provided below. The goal of these trials were to come up with lightweight mixes without using Elemix (expanded polystyrene) in order to increase density and compressive strength. Two different sizes of Poraver (recycled glass beads) were used in each mix. Mix 4 incorporated an air-entraining admixture to increase air content percentage.

Mix 4

Material TypeMaterial NameWeight (lbs)
Cementitious MaterialsPortland Cement (Type I)0.77250
Silica Fume0.13500
AggregatesCenospheres0.41250
Poraver (0.25-0.5 mm)0.47650
Poraver (0.5-1.0 mm)0.37500
WaterWater0.30000
Sikament 686 (SP)0.01300
Sika Air (AE)0.01300
Additional Water for Aggregate Absorption0.20850

Mix 3

Material TypeMaterial NameWeight (lbs)
Cementitious MaterialsPortland Cement (Type I)0.35000
Silica Fume0.00505
Slag0.00705
AggregatesCenospheres0.05000
Poraver (0.1-0.3 mm)0.25000
Poraver (0.5-1.0 mm)0.08000
WaterWater0.25000
Sikament 6860.03500

Mix Design #2

Our second mix design was created on 10/16/15 and included six 2″ x 2″ x 2″ cubes:

Material TypeMaterial NameWeight (lbs)
Cementitious MaterialsPortland Cement (Type I)0.27650
Silica Fume0.00405
Slag0.00505
AggregatesCenospheres0.03765
Poraver (0.1-0.3 mm)0.32380
Elemix0.03060
WaterWater0.21100
Sikament 6860.03500