TCNJ took home third place from the ASCE Metropolitan region competition!!

Our competition is about two weeks away! Our team has created a stand for the canoe to be place on. Once the stand was built, we could remove the canoe from the mold. Our canoe was successfully removed from our mold! We created one last concrete mix and touched up some patches and smoothed the edges of the canoe. We are currently creating a display for the canoe and posters to explain our design and building process at the competition.

Our Canoe just finished the 28-day curing process. Once the canoe was completed, the curing process started that night.  In order to cure the concrete, burlap sacks were soaked and wrapped around the canoe. A piece of plastic was placed over the burlap sacks to keep the moisture in. In order to ensure the canoe maintained moisture, the burlap sacks were soaked every day.  Curing is an important process because it increases the strength and durability of the concrete.

The construction of our mold for the canoe began as soon as we all arrived back from winter break. The cross sections were cut in the woodshop and to connect them, we used decorative paneling. The tips of the canoe were created by shaving a block Styrofoam into the correct shape. Once the mold was complete, our team spent 10 hours in the lab, mixing and spraying the canoe with the concrete. Pictures of the construction process can be found in the gallery.

Over winter break, we finalized our concrete mixture. We first narrowed our mix design down to five different mixes. The compressive strength of each mix was tested. We then choose our final design based on the workability and compressive strength of each mix. Our canoe dimensions were uploaded from MaxSurf to AutoCad. From AutoCad we were able to take section cuts along the length of the boat in order to create a mold for the canoe. Once we got back from break, we were ready to start making the mold.

Research was conducted on the materials the ASCE Concrete Canoe Rules and Regulations allow each team to use for their mix design. After capital and material fundraising, it was concluded that Portland Cement Type I and Silica Fume would be used as our cementitious materials, Poraver (0.5-1.0mm) and LS300 Cenospheres would be used as our aggregates, and Sikament 686 and Sika Air (air entrainer) would be used as our admixtures. Our goal was to create ten applicable mix designs that would be strength oriented, yet lightweight. To ensure these qualities were maintained, the density of the mix must be between 60.4-64.4 lbs/ft³. Ten mix designs were created with the specified density on a mix design excel spreadsheet. The materials are in the process of being donated to our team so testing and mixing our designs can be completed.

Our hull design has made a lot of progress in the past couple of weeks. The hull is being designed in the program Maxsurf. We are finalizing the dimensions of the canoe this week. We started with one main asymmetrical design in Maxsurf and manipulate the length and beam for alternative designs. We are testing our canoe designs with three different lengths and three different beams. The dimensions are tested in Maxsurf’s resistance software. The resistance software outputs a resistance vs. speed graph and our canoe dimensions will be selected by the end of the week based on the graph with the lowest resistance.

Last week our team started mixing concrete. We created a mix design based off of last years team to see what improvements could be made. Our mix design is currently curing in the lab.

We also practiced using the mortar sprayer. It is important to practice this technique because this is how the concrete is applied to the canoe. We used a basic mortar mix that is designed for the mortar sprayer to practice so we can get an idea of what type of work-ability our mix design needs to have.

Check out a video of the mortar sprayer: https://concretecanoe17.pages.tcnj.edu/gallery/

Problem Statement:

Our goal is to design and fabricate a maneuverable, buoyant, strong and lightweight concrete canoe to be displayed and raced at the ASCE regional conference competition.

Background:

The first National Concrete Canoe Competition took place in 1988. The concrete canoe competition is not only to practice engineering skills such as, management, construction, concrete design, environmental topics, communication, and transportation of the final product, but to also brings ACSE Student Organizations together. The competition is held at Cooks Pond in Denville, NJ and is judged on a design paper, oral presentation, races and the final product itself.