In 1848, Joseph Louis Lambot
built concrete boats for his estate in France. ASCE Student chapters
began competing in the concrete canoe in the 1960’s and it has been a
national competition since 1988.
This project requires students to design,
build and race the canoe each year regionally and then nationally according
to rules and regulations set forth by the ASCE National Concrete Canoe
Committee. This competition promotes
teamwork, communication, leadership, scheduling,
accounting and problem solving that can be implemented in the workforce.
To build
the canoe, students must design an ideal concrete and reinforcement
composite section and an ideal hull. For the concrete design, we researched
different cementitious materials, aggregates,
admixtures, and reinforcements. After testing several different
combinations of these materials, we selected a concrete that was
lightweight and strong. The hull was designed using yacht design software.
This data was then imported into a finite element analysis program to
determine areas of highest stress.
With our
design selected, we set out to build the canoe. First, we constructed the strongback which holds our mold.
The mold was constructed out of Styrofoam and
covered in shrink wrap. Our reinforcement was placed top of the mold and held in place by dobies and the inlays. Two layers of concrete
were cast on the mold to give us our canoe. After
the canoe had cured, it was sanded and sealed to give us our finished
product.
