| SPECIFICATIONS:
Overall length of boat: 6.5 m (21.33 ft)
Net weight of canoe: 74.8
kg (165 lb)
Concrete: 1053
kg/m3 (66.0 lb/ft3)
Reinforcement: Three Layers of Spatially Separated Un-impregnated
Graphite
Placement: 2nd at Regional
Regional Conference: University of Alabama,
Tuscaloosa, AL National Competition: Clemson
University, Clemson, SC
Officers:
P: Robert Dudley
VP: Jordan Farina
S: Andrea Presto
T: Benjamin Stauffer
COB: Jonathan Thrasher
SBC: John Corbell Faculty
Advisors:
Dr. John Gilbert
Dr. Houssam Toutanji Contact Members:
Mr. Tim Barnett
Mr. John Martin Concrete
Canoe Chair: Jonathan Thrasher Coach: Andrea
Presto Media
Relations:
Mr. Phil Gentry Technical
Editor:
Ms. Kay Bradburn |
"Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world."
-- Albert Einstein
Thinking
"Out-of-the-Box:"
"World changing inventions are so different
that they initially have to masquerade as 'better old things' rather
than 'completely new things'." -- Alan Kay
 "Imagineer"
was a completely new thing... a Strategically Tuned Absolutely Resilient Structure (STARS)
designed to morph and mimic the locomotive motion of aquatic creatures.
As our
team pulled their paddles from the water, the elastic strain energy
stored in the deformed shape was converted into forward momentum.
We employed adaptive reinforcement to enable
the composite lay-up to withstand the high stresses and strains that
occurred as the structure was driven toward a controlled resonance.
But we had to be very careful not to overstress the hull...
because that could have led to disaster.
We found it beneficial to position two layers of
reinforcement as close as possible to the upper and lower surfaces of
the section to increase the moment of inertia. Fibers were aligned
longitudinally and transversely with respect to the longitudinal
centerline of the canoe so that they were positioned in the principal
stress directions. We placed a third layer of reinforcement at the
center of the section, with fibers oriented at plus and minus 45° to
the structural axes. Fiber rotation increases the torsional stiffness
and decreases the flexural stiffness of the hull resulting in lower
natural frequencies that are closer together, and a better balance in
the amplitudes of the fundamental modes.
Applications
to Structural Morphing:
You probably thought that those flying creatures in "Lord of the
Rings" were just a figment of someone's imagination...
  But if you
did, you need to think twice because we believe that STARS fabricated from cementitious composites
will make things like wing morphing possible...
"A wing that could change shape could
improve an aircraft's ability to reach its destination quickly, then
loiter there," say scientists at the U.S. Air Force Research
Laboratory.
Turning Ideas into
Reality:
Team UAH collaborated with Holeman Scientific and the U.S. Army to adapt our
nation's RRAPDS missile tracking system to quantify the dynamic
performance of the "Imagineer."
The key components of the RRAPDS system are wireless
communications links and three-axis accelerometers.
The Army is currently
developing RRAPDS for missile/munitions health monitoring.
he system features
wireless communication links and MEMS sensors that were tailored to
suit our needs. See:
Marotta, S.A., Ooi, T.K., Gilbert, J.A., "Structural health monitoring of strategically tuned absolutely
resilient structures (STARS)" (PDF
Download; 161 KB), Proc. of the 2004 SEM X International Congress &
Exposition on Experimental and Applied Mechanics, Costa Mesa, California, June
7-10, 2004, Paper No. 172, 6 pages.
Our
Expectations and Accomplishments:
We had fun building public awareness of
concrete technology by designing, building, and racing our concrete
canoe in 2005. But the primary
purpose for fielding our entry was to make our
audience aware of the advancements that we made so
that they can better appreciate the milestones that we achieved
as the next generation of civil engineers.
There is a really good chance, for example, that
some of the cementitious composites that we are developing will replace
standard aerospace composites. We have received Congressional funding to
explore this possibility and, in addition to morphing, have high hopes of using our concrete to support
telescopes in space, for rocket fuselages, to build a lunar colony -- or
for low-cost emergency shelters on Earth.
As illustrated below, we turned our ideas into
reality. "Imagineer" was blue and white with gray accents.
The infinity symbol inlayed on the exterior of the hull signifies
that our imagination has no limits while the “Imagineer” logo
inlayed on the interior of the hull reflects our unique competition
strategy.
Alumni Notes:
We placed second at the regional level after running
into some technical difficulties...
Our team was unnerved when the judges decided to deduct
10 percent of our design paper score for leaving out a "-" in
the pagination of our appendices (i.e., A1 as opposed to A-1). It
was also a bit disturbing when additional points were removed for
including a memorandum in one of the appendices that was sent to us by
the Committee on National Concrete Canoe Competitions (CNCCC) approving
our competition strategy. We included the memo in good faith to
avoid confusion and explained that in an official response to the
deduction... but to no avail. See: 2005
NCCC Design Paper Deduction Score Card.
Needless to say we won't be making those mistakes again and
appreciate your continued support!
Details regarding our preparation for future
competitions can be found in our
Current Events
section.
Back to Competition History
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