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2011 ASCE Concrete Canoe competition

Students: concrete_canoe_team

  1. Oluwaseye Akele
  2. Ryan Havey
  3. Keith O’Sullivan
  4. Kevin Morgan

Advisor: Dr. Vedrana Krstic

concrete_canoe2The TCNJ Concrete Canoe Design Team designed and built a concrete canoe to be displayed and raced at the ASCE regional conference concrete canoe competition held at Fairleigh Dickinson University in April 2011. This represented the first ever time a team from The College of New Jersey was involved with the competition. Problems to overcome involved designing concrete mixes which were lightweight, strong, and used sustainable materials wherever possible, analysis of the hydraulic properties of the canoe, and creation of the scale models. A major theme carried throughout the design was sustainability and green engineering to which end recycled materials such as crushed glass shards, old cardboard boxes, and blast furnace slag were used in the mix design. The final concrete mix design achieved unit weight of 62 pounds per cubic foot and met all of the guidelines set forth by the CNCCC. Two mixes were designed, one which contained free fibers to increase flexural strength, while the other mix did not include fibers in order to maximize workability. Both mixes utilized silica fume to help achieve enhanced strength properties. For structural analysis of the canoe, scale models were constructed that were tested to determine optimum rider positions and modeled stresses felt on a small scale. Hydraulic analysis was conducted utilizing Hullform computer software to determine the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic conditions of the canoe. In the end the team successfully represented TCNJ at the competition by placing first in the design paper category.

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