May 6, 2008

Engineer looks at options for strengthening Parliament’s stone walls

WINNIPEG

Parliament has been shaken by many scandals over the past century without hurting the buildings, but a Winnipeg-based researcher says an earthquake’s rumble could seriously damage the historic walls.

Rather than one heavy wall, most of the Parliament buildings have a double layer of two thinner walls with a gap between them, said Aftab Mufti, scientific director for the civil and engineering network ISIS Canada.

The gapped walls, Mufti says, could pose a problem some day for a city that lies in a moderate earthquake zone.

“(It’s) like if two people who were dancing were not synchronized,” said Mufti, noting that the shaking walls could become damaged by bouncing separately from each other.

Mufti is working on a project, funded by ISIS and the federal government, that’s looking at options for strengthening the Parliament buildings. One option includes outfitting the stone walls with bars of fibre-reinforced polymer, a stronger-than-steel material that combines plastic and glass fibres.

The project includes testing at the University of Manitoba, where Mufti is a civil engineering professor, to see how the reinforced walls would respond to pressure and fluctuating temperatures.

“It’s a really beautiful thing to be working on,” Mufti said of the project.

To mimic the double walls of Parliament Hill’s West Block, researchers have gathered blocks of limestone and sandstone, and recruited a Winnipeg headstone maker to cut and anchor the stones together.

The bound blocks will be tested in Winnipeg to see how much force it takes to cause the pieces to separate, said Mufti.

The structures will also be tested in the university’s temperature-controlled freeze-thaw chamber, to see how they react in 20 C and -20 C conditions.

Canadian Press

Print | Email | Comment