Provincial Engineering & Geoscience Week

4 | W I N N I P E G F R E E P R E S S A S a l u t e t o P r o f e ss i o n a l E n g i n e e r s & G e o s c i e n t i s t s ! >> Continued from Page 3 Flood testing (from left) Steven Harms, Shawn Clark, James Blatz and Kevin Sagan evaluate flood protection products in the Hydraulics Research and Testing Facility at the U of M. Photo by Darcy Finley New wave-pool facility crash tests flood-protection products By Holli Moncrieff for the Free Press A new wave-testing facility at the University of Manitoba is strengthening our defences against future floods. T he innovative 1,000 square-foot testing pool allows university researchers to see how well new technology stands up against raging flood��waters. ���I don���t think many universities have something like this ��� it���s fairly unique,��� said Shawn Clark, civil engineering researcher and principal investigator on the project. ���It will be used to help develop better flood-fighting products but also to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of those already on the��market.��� Steven Harms and Kevin Fagan, two engineering students at the University of Manitoba, developed the wave tank using protocols created by the United States Army Corps of��Engineers. ���It was a bit beyond the students��� previous experience. It was a lot for them to get it set up, including the design, instrumentation and then they had to figure out how to get power out to the site,��� Clark said of the testing facility, which is located outdoors in the university���s Smartpark area, near a storm-water retention pond. ���Everyone was excited when the waves started going and impacting the��structure.��� The testing facility will allow for unbiased assessments of various flood-fighting materials. Last summer the wave pool was used to test four-foot tall sandbags called Wave Breakers. Created by Winnipeg company ITW Syn-Tex, the new-style sandbags are being tested in a stacked configuration and have been arranged to form an eight-foot high wall in the tank. Wave Breakers are more durable than traditional sandbags, which require several volunteers to set up.��The bags can be installed faster and stand up better to wave action and fastmoving debris.�� The hope is to develop a safe, reliable and more economical alternative to traditional sandbag��dikes. ���Everyone���s products claim to be the best, but they don���t have results from tests that have been conducted by anyone but themselves,��� said Clark. ���They���ve been proven in the field somewhat, but never tested in a controlled environment. As a university, we have independent and objective ways to access different flood-fighting��structures.��� The testing will resume this spring as soon as the weather is warm enough. All final results will be made available to the City of Winnipeg and Province of Manitoba, said��Clark. ���The sandbags we���re testing are quite huge ��� they���re not the same sandbags people hand down a line to build a dike,��� he said. ���We���ve used the same configuration as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by having sandbags on three sides of the pool and a large wooden retaining wall on the fourth��side.��� University researchers have strived to make the wave tank as similar to real flood conditions as possible, even impacting the structures with a 12-foot log at the speed of eight kilometres-per-hour. The log test served to mimic the impact of the floating debris that often accumulates during a��flood. ���There are a number of tests we ended up doing. We made sure the product would hold water back and remain stationary, and we also quantified the seepage rate to see how much water escaped,��� Clark said. ���Waves are generated in the pool to impact the structures and see if they cause any��damage.��� While the wave-testing facility is not expected to be a permanent structure at the university, Clark suspects it will remain as long as there are companies to request testing on their��products. ���The advantage of this facility is that we���ll know beforehand which products work best in certain situations. We are able to develop a list of each product���s strengths and limitations before they���re put to use during a flood,��� he��said. ITW Syn-Tex provided the materials and products for the testing facility, along with some of the labour. Funding for the $25,000 facility was shared by the university and the federal��government. ���A lot of women want a job in an area where they can help people, so they���ll go into nursing or medicine or some other area where it���s very visible how you���re making someone���s life better. What happens in engineering is kind of the opposite ��� by the time the public is even aware of a problem, we���ve already solved it.��� Nedohin-Macek and her peers across North America have recently stepped up their efforts to help attract increased numbers of young women to engineering, and to attempt to restore a little gender-balance to what has traditionally been an uneven playing field. The U of M���s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) KidNetic program delivers hands-on educational workshops to more than 20,000 K-12 students in Manitoba each year, in the hopes of fostering a technically-literate, stereotype-free environment where young people can explore their interests in engineering and science. Last November, the Faculty of Engineering welcomed 100-plus high school students to its Engineering IS for Women forum ��� which featured speakers, panel discussions and hands-on activities ��� and later the same day hosted more than 100 alumni, students and faculty members at a special Celebration of Women in Engineering event. APEGM���s new Committee for Increasing the Participation of Women in Engineering (CIPWIE) takes part in outreach and development activities, research initiatives and collaborations. And just last year, Engineers Canada, the national body tasked with the education and registration of engineers across the country, launched its ���30 by 30��� strategy, which aims to raise the percentage of women engineers in all provinces to 30 per cent by the year 2030. ���For us to accomplish that could be very difficult, given today���s enrolment numbers,��� said Nedohin-Macek. ���But it���s better in some provinces than others. Manitoba only has about 6,300 engineers right now, whereas some of the other provinces have 60,000 ��� so the percentage of female engineers there is higher because there are more opportunities in those environments.��� Not all areas of engineering are as disproportionate as the overall average suggests, said Nedohin-Macek. The fields of biosystems and civil and mechanical engineering tend to be at least 50 per cent female, while bioscience engineering boasts an even higher ratio. But electrical engineering sits below 10 per cent, and computer engineering even lower at 6 per cent. ���Part of the stigma is that it is still a very male-centric field,��� said Nedohin-Macek. ���If you spent a day coming to meetings with me, you���d see I���m often the only female in the room.��� The imbalance can spur women to greater lengths to showcase their work �����or to fight harder to have their voices and opinions heard ��� she continued, though she herself has always felt well supported in the workplace. ���I haven���t had a lot of issues,��� she said. ���But Manitoba Hydro has over 600 engineers and a very strong family-centric executive. If I say I have to pick up my kids from day care, it���s not a problem, whereas in some smaller companies, it might still be an issue for some women.��� Some believe engineering has done itself a disservice by focusing too much on technical aspects ��� a theory supported by the significant presence of women in engineering streams where they can clearly see how their work can make a difference. And while the misconceptions make it hard to attract female students to the faculty, there���s at least one benefit ��� female engineers are often highly sought-after by employers looking to diversify their workforces. ���A good company should be looking for a balanced team of male and female engineers to provide a balanced perspective,��� said Nedohin-Macek. ���Research shows all-male or all-female teams

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