September in Roorkee.

On Sept. 23 I went in to the bazar to buy a new pair of shoes since my fine Italian shoe were in dire need of repairs and I needed an extra pair while the repair work was being done. I bought a new pair for an excellent price of Rs 250/- ($ 6.00) but I had scarcely gone a hundred metres before this new pair started to fall apart. So back I went to the shoe store where I was able to exchange these cheap shoes for something better plus Rs 50/-. On the way home I stopped at a confectionary to buy some sweets as I expected to entertain one of the neighbours in a day or so. I ate one of the sweets which was enough to precipitate a bout of tummy trouble. This was the last of three incidents in September.

Earlier I was in a collision with a scooter and fell on the roadway getting scrapes and bruises to my left shoulder and elbow, knees and small puncture wounds to both palms and two fingers one on each hand. Luckily there were no concussion, sprains or broken bones. I am now fully recovered. The cost to repair my bike was about 80 cents (CAN). It was my fault as I did not signal that I was turning since I though no one was behind me.

Then I had another small mishap. In the night I stepped into a ditch which should have been covered and took another tumble. The damage this time was limited to a few scrapes to my right hand which was holding on to my umbrella. I am pretty well recoverd from this as well. Hopefully I will avoid such dramas in October. The good news is that the weather has turned and the temperature is quite pleasant in the mornings and evenings and the sky clear all day long. This is the start of the best season. I will be going to Sri Lanka for a conference and will take a short holiday after that. So long for now.
Daddio

PS
Yahoo is driving me nuts so I am using my gmail account. However please use Yahoo for sending messages.

ARCHES: STRUCTURES OF STRENGTH AND BEAUTY

By P.C.Helwig
Telegram Special for Engineering Week: March 3/2001

Have you ever traveled on Route 91 between Colinet and Placentia? Did you stop for a visit to Cataracts Provincial Park? If you didn’t, you should have – because you would have discovered the beautiful Cataracts Bridge (see Photo 1), which is the centrepiece of the Park. This elegant structure was built exactly 75 years ago. The contractor was H. Simmons, from the Colinet area, and design engineer Rudolph Cochius, apparently from Montreal.

The arch is a structure of strength and beauty and of ancient lineage. Builders of ancient times had few choices of building materials. Their preferred building materials for durable construction were stone or fired bricks rather than wood; since wooden structures were vulnerable to fire, rot and termites. Simple structures in stone could only span a few metres, the extent of a single slab, since stone is weak is tension. Ancient builders discovered that this shortcoming of stone, or masonry construction, could be overcome if the structure was formed in a curved or “arched” shape, with each stone supported by its neighbor. With the proper shape, external loads would be supported entirely in compression by the stones forming an arch ring of wedge-shaped (voussoir) stones, thereby benefiting from the great strength of stone in compression. This type of design permitted very much larger spans between supporting pillars and abutments than was possible for simple stone structures.

Historians differ in their opinions about the discoverers of the principle of the arch; some suggest the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (ca. 14th century B.C.) but most credit the Etruscans (ca. 5th century B.C.). However, it was the Roman engineers, who capitalized on the advantages of arch structures to build some of the most useful and enduring structures of all time. Consider the Puente Romano at Alcántara, Spain, (see Photo 2) built by Caius Julius Lacer, in 104 A.D. for Emperor Trajan and still in use after almost 1900 years. Another spectacular structure is the Pont du Gard Aqueduct (see Photo 3) in France, built in 18 B.C. to supply water to Nemansus (now Nîmes). It operated reliably for about 300 years, eventually ceasing to function through lack of maintenance.

The Romans also perfected construction of the dome, a three dimensional form of the arch. Their greatest dome is the dome of the Pantheon (Temple for all the Roman Gods) in Rome that was built in A.D. 102 for Emperor Hadrian. In 609 it was rededicated as a church to Madonna and All the Martyrs and is still in service today. With a diameter of 43.3 m (142 ft) it is slightly larger than the dome of St. Peters, in Rome and still one of the largest, if not the largest, masonry dome ever built.

For all their accomplishments, it appears that the Romans never developed a scientific understanding of the structural behaviour of arches, and that their understanding and rules of practice were entirely derived from practical experience.

The first concerted attempts to develop the science of arch behaviour were not taken up until the 1700’s, when this question was explored, both theoretically and experimentally, by the greatest engineers of that era, notably – Hooke, Coulomb and Castigliano. The challenge was to apply the new rules of Newtonian mechanics and elasticity to describe the behaviour of the masonry arch. However, it wasn’t until a century later – the mid 1800’s that a complete rational design method was available in the standard engineering text books. Co-incidentally, about the time that the masonry arch construction was losing favour to construction in other materials, cast iron, steel and concrete!

Interestingly, the study of masonry arch bridges was revived in the 1940’s when military planners and highway engineers in Britain became concerned about the strength of aging masonry arch bridges, built in the horse and buggy era, to support modern traffic loads. Prof. Jacques Heymann of Cambridge University extended this work in the 1980s, using modern plastic analysis and was able to show that 90% of Britain’s 70,000 masonry arch bridges are safe for modern traffic. To replace them all would have cost about $14 Billion (CDN).

Arch dams form another interesting category of arch structures where the applied load is transferred by arch action into the valley walls. While the earliest arch dams date back to the 1600’s in Spain, technology of arch dam design and construction was largely developed in the twentieth century.

The modern arch dam, built in concrete, is a structure of complex geometry and subject to a variety of loading conditions, from water, ice and temperature. Now-a-days, arch dam design is always carried out with the aid of computers. The arch dam is the preferred design where a river is confined in a gorge or steep sided valley. Arch dams figure among the highest dams ever built, such as Inguri (Republic of Georgia) 272 m, Vajont (Italy) 262 m and Ertan (China) 245 m. Paradise River Arch Dam, completed in 1988, near Monkstown, (see Photo 4) is small compared to these giants, but at 43 m in height, it is 78 % as tall as Confederation Building. The volume of concrete required in its construction was 3,240 m³ compared to about 15,000 m³ that would have been required if constructed as a conventional concrete gravity dam. Except for the parapet walls and spillway overhang, no reinforcing steel was used in its construction.

Therefore, in addition to strength and beauty a further attribute of arch construction is efficiency!



Article contributed by Phil Helwig, P.Eng. AMEC E&C Services Limited. Phil was the designer of record for the Paradise River Arch Dam. (Phil can be contacted at hydrophil2003@yahoo.ca)

More information about arches can be found from the following sources.

a) Book/Magazines:

“Testing Times for Arches”
by Bill Harvey
New Scientist – May 15, 1986 issue.

“Bridging: Discovering the Beauty of Bridges”
by R.S. Cortright
available from
American Society of Civil Engineers
(www.asce.org)

“The Masonry Arch”
by Jacques Heyman
Wiley and Sons
Rexdale, Ontario
A basic knowledge of calculus and statics is required to understand this book.

b) Video Tape:

“Building Big”
5-part video series
$69.95 U.S.
Available from
American Society for Civil Engineers
(or wait for a re-run on PBS Television, one episode features domes, another bridges).

c) On the internet:

www.britanica.com/arches about arch structures in general
www.myron.sjsu.edu/ROMEWEB/ENGINEER about Roman engineering
www.usbr.gov/cdams about U.S. arch dams
www.ot.nimes.fr about Pont du Gard Aqueduct

d) Government of Newfoundland
Ms. Lynn Evans
Director of Public Relations
Dept. of Works, Services and Transportation
Confederation Building
St. John’s, NF Tel: (709) 729-3015 about Cataracts Bridge

e) Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro
Mr. Trevor Arbuckle, P.Eng.
Manager – Hydro Generation
Bay d’Espoir, NF (709) 882-2551 about Paradise River Arch Dam

CENTRAL AMERICAN ADVENTURES - 2003.

My original plan was to write up a weekly progress report to e-mail to Canada but the computer at the internet café would not co-operate so I finally gave up. Hopefully, now that I am back in the office, with help available, I will be luckier.

To begin, I had for sometime planned a lengthy visit to Guatemala to study Spanish. Why Guatemala (?) that itself is a long story, suffice to say it started in Whitehorse in 1996 where I met a young fellow who highly recommended the place also mentioning the cost of Spanish language courses to be very affordable. Subsequently, several other people recommended the country and especially the schools in the second city of Quetzaltenango. On a more practical level, a friend of a friend living in Quetzaltenango recommended three Spanish schools. I then checked them out on their websites and selected Instituto Centro America (ICA) - Escuela de Español, which was in the middle of the price range. The program included five hours of instruction daily with an individual teacher, a program of recreational and/or cultural events in the afternoons and weekends plus room and board with a family. All this for $ 200 (Canadian) per week!

To complete this introduction, I would like to mention the following facts about the place:
• The local name for Quetzaltenango is Xela: pronounced Shayla. This name is used throughout Guatemala for the City. Quetzaltenango is also the name for one of Guatemala’s 22 departments (provinces) and is normally used only in reference to this department.
• Xela is located in a high mountain valley at elevation 2,270 m (7,450 ft.) and the weather is cool at nights (down to 2° C) but very pleasant during the day (18-20o C).
• Xela is in an area where the majority of the population are Maya Indians.
• Xela has a population of about 500,000.
• Most of the tourists are Spanish language students studying at one of the 22 private language schools in the City!
• A curious practice common in Central America is to call the dry season, summer and the rainy season, winter. Therefore, summer in Guatemala lasts from November through May and winter from June through October contrary to the calendar definition for countries in the Northern Hemisphere!

I left Montreal on Saturday, January 4 at 6:00 a.m. via American Airlines to Guatemala City via Miami reaching there at 1:00 p.m. local time (CST). I was met at the airport by Hipolito and taken to Dos Lunas Guesthouse, a five-room establishment in the suburbs near the airport. Next morning, Sunday January 5, I traveled by Galgos Bus (tourist class!!) to Xela via the Pan American Highway. The trip took four hours with a half hour rest stop at a restaurant midway. The highway was in excellent condition as were all the major roads in the country. After arriving at Xela, I hiked the two blocks from the bus terminal to the school office to meet the Director, Enriquez Diaz, and he took me over to my “family” - the Lopez’s, whose house was a couple of blocks from the school and adjacent to the Xela Branch of Gallo Brewery!

The school was in a rather ordinary building with classrooms, or rather cubicles, arranged around a courtyard that was sunlit from 9:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Classes were from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. with a snack break at 11:00 a.m. Snacks of local delicacies were on sale most days, prepared by one or other of the teachers to earn a little extra pocket money. Lunch, the main meal of the day, would be at 1:30 p.m. and would be eaten at “home” with the student’s family. A program of cultural activities was organized in the afternoons and weekends.

During the first week, there were about nine students with numbers increasing by twos and threes for each of the following weeks. Except for the last week when a gang of about 24 students showed up from a U.S. college on a “semester abroad” program. The student body was very diverse with students from the U.S., Germany, Holland and Japan. The students were either recent grads or still studying for their degrees. Their motives for studying Spanish were almost as diverse as their origins, from learning Spanish for travel to preparing themselves for careers in law, medicine, social work, international trade or international development. Several anticipated that they would need to speak in Spanish fluently to effectively serve Hispanic clients in the U.S. They were a very fine group of young people and studying and traveling with them was one of the highlights of my experience in Guatemala.

My own program of study focused on two areas of language, learning the verbs - especially the numerous irregular verbs, and conversation/vocabulary acquisition. I had a different teacher each week, Irwin, Leyti, Miguel and Fernanda. We covered a lot of ground but still needed another week to tackle the subjunctive form of the verb! One of the clear benefits of this kind of program is that I was able to practice what I learned in class with my family in the evening. Other learning opportunities came about in negotiating ordinary daily chores such as, shopping, ordering meals in restaurants, dealing with folks in the Laundromat, the barbershop and the hardware store, etc. The hardware store caused me the biggest problem when I went to buy a tube of magic glue. I remembered the word for magic but forgot to look up the word for glue before going to the store! I finally got what I wanted but it took a while.

I will now mention some of the most interesting after hour activities. The first of these activities was an afternoon trip to Zunil a small town about 40 minutes by “chicken” bus from Xela. We visited a flourishing co-operative that produced woven produces for tourists and export. We also visited the shrine to San Simon a traditional Maya god whose personage has been incorporated in the popular (but not official) form Roman Catholicism. Syncretism is the word I think!

A novel adventure was a visit to the Prision de Mujeres (Women’s Prison). More correctly, this was a detention centre for mainly first time offenders awaiting their day in court. The school was providing support for the women during their period in the centre, which could last many months. Mostly it was an occasion for socializing and checking out their basketball skills. One short plump lady was amazing; she could hit the basket from just about anywhere on the court!

Another town we visited was Salajaca, which is a major traditional textile producing center. We visited a dyeing plant and weaving operation there. The oldest church in Central American is located in this place but was not open to the public since it was undergoing renovation.

We also visited Fuentes Georgina thermal springs about 10 km, beyond Zunil, where the warm waters are trapped in a swimming pool. This was a perfect way to recover after climbing to the top of a nearby ridge.

Another afternoon we walked from the outskirts of Xela to another thermal spring billed as a natural sauna. I went along for the walk but skipped the sauna experience.

On my first weekend I joined a group of other students on an ascent of Volcano Santa Maria. This was a major undertaking as it involved a climb (and return) of about 1200 m+, vertically to reach the top. We started at 6:00 a.m. from the school traveling by pickup to the beginning of the trail 5 km outside of town. A Canadian friend Graham (a.k. Felipe) also joined us. It was a steady climb of about five hours for me to reach the top (about one hour slower than the kids!) but I made it. Graham decided that he was not fit enough to follow us and turned back half way up. The view from the top was spectacular and well worth the effort. The elevation at the top was 3770 m (12,400 feet). This is similar to the highest points I reached in Nepal, but of course in Nepal that is where the mountains really start. Near the summit, the ground was frozen, in fact the condition of the trail in some areas, where the ground under foot was a combination of black mud and ice, was especially treacherous. I survived the worst, only to fall flat on my face in a section of track that was almost flat! We returned to the school at 5:30 p.m.

The other major expedition organized by the school was a daylong visit to Panajachel, arguably one of the most spectacular natural sights in the whole of Central America. Panajachel is the largest town on the shoreline of Lake Atitlan a lake trapped between an inland range of mountains and a coastal volcanic range. We were six (I think) including our guide Miguel. With Miguel’s assistance we rented a boat for the remainder of the day and cruised the lake visiting Santiago Atitlan, San Antonio and Sta. Caterina, in addition to Panajachel. We lunched at Sta. Caterina on freshly caught fish from the lake. We traveled by local buses also called “chicken” buses by trekkers, but there were no chickens. Travel by bus is amazingly cheap and we only spent about Q 12 (about $ 2.50) for 140 km of traveling to and fro.

Two other events at the school were also memorable, a conference by an ex guerilla fighter Comandante Tino and a folk dancing concert by young Mayan students.

I also arranged a few activities on my own, notably:

• A tour of El Canada Hydroelectric Development with Graham (Felipe) Seward. Of interest: the site investigation for this development was carried out by a friend and former colleague Dave Besaw, while Graham was previously in charge of the construction phase of the Trishuli Devighat Project in Nepal ( I was responsible for the design phase). It’s a small world indeed.
• An interview with an expert on Maya culture and language.
• A visit to Antigua, for a couple of days before leaving Guatemala. Antigua is a World heritage site and was, at its height, the capital of Spanish Central America. It was destroyed by a series of earthquakes during the 1700’s when the capital was relocated to present day Guatemala City. Antigua would have been very wealthy in its heyday and evidence of this are the numerous ruins mostly churches, some of which have been restored while restoration work is continuing on others.

I left Xela on Thursday, January 30 to Antigua, where I spent two days as a tourist. From there I continued to Guatemala City for my last night in the country, before leaving on February 2, for Nicaragua.

The finale of my adventures was a short visit to meet friends in Nicaragua. This trip was only for four days, but courtesy of ATDER (Asociation de trabajadores de desarollo rurale). I was able to see quite a bit of the country, mainly in the area northwest of Matagalpa. ATDER is an NGO working on small development projects in rural Nicaragua, mainly water supply and mini-hydro projects. I was able to visit a couple of their projects and to meet some folks involved in the hydro business there.

Overall, I had a most interesting and rewarding vacation and am very pleased with my progress in Spanish. My comprehension is good and conversation skills adequate to work in Spanish as an engineer, if the occasion should ever arise.

I am attaching a few pictures to complete this account. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Philip Helwig

April 6, 2003

TRAVELS IN VIETNAM 2005

I went to Vietnam as a sub-consultant to SNC-Lavalin (Vancouver) with in the position of Team Leader on the 110 MW Ban Chat Hydropower Project. Our base was Hanoi and our client was Power Engineering Consulting Company # 1 of Vietnam (PECC1). We were there to review and to advise on their designs for two projects (two teams): Ban Chat and Huoi Quang projects. I came as the replacement for the original team leader who had health problems. Later I took over as waterway design expert as well as the engineer assigned by SNC-Lavalin lacked the necessary design experience to do the work. The terms of reference and expectation of the client were far from clear and it seemed to me that there was little interest in many of the areas defined in the terms of reference. PECC1’s design was basically satisfactory and many of our suggestions concerned refinements in details that offered potential cost savings or simplification to construction. Most of the suggested cost savings were minor when compared with the overall price tag and were of little interest to the Vietnamese Director, Mr. Hung. His main interest, when all was said and done, was to access SNC-Lavalin’s expertise on the design and construction of RCC (roller compacted concrete) dams an area in which SNC-Lavalin is well experienced.

The easy interpersonal relationships which were the norm in Nepal were unfortunately absent in Vietnam. The several consultants working with PECC1 from Canada, Russia and Switzerland each worked in separated ghettos with limited contact with Vietnamese counterparts. Eating arrangements at lunch time were likewise segregated, foreigners at their assigned tables and Vietnamese at other tables, so much for solidarity of the proletariat!!
Communication was also a problem as few people spoke English or French, even in the professional classes. Vietnamese is a very difficult language to learn for foreigners and probably Vietnamese find European languages likewise incomprehensible. We relied enormously on our secretary/translator Tuyen as translator and advisor on protocol.

With the exception of the bureaucratic machine that was PECC1 there was little evidence of that Vietnam is a communist country on the contrary one gets the impression of a vigorous capitalistic economy with every conceivable consumer good on sale in hundreds of small shops lining the streets. The economy seems to be growing quickly and the standard of living improving apace. The country is now in the scooter age and the streets are saturated with scooters and motor cycles. Street crossing in day or night was guaranteed to provide a thrill. If the Vietnamese cannot resist the allure of the automobile one can predict monster traffic jams in Hanoi in the near future.

Altogether my assignment lasted seven weeks from Oct 3 to Nov 20, 2005. During this period I stayed in Hanoi and explored the city, checked out the restaurants, attended one show at the Hanoi Opera and joined the Indian community and friends for Diwali festivities. On my final weekend I made contact with a language school and looked forward to a part time volunteer job during the second phase of the project that unfortunately did not materialize. The limited traveling I did was at the completion of my assignment. An account of these travels is given below.


Sunday Nov. 20:
I packed up my belongings at Asean Hotel, stored books; extra stuff and computer then took an ordinary bus from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. The trip lasted from 11 am to 3 pm with a stop for lunch. At Ha Long Bay I hooked up with a friend of the bus driver who took me over to Ho Toy Hotel on hotel row. In this part of town there are several small hotels that all look alike and have similar names therefore it was important not to lose the business card of the hotel!
Across the road was a small café/hotel with only one guest. Stopped there for a coffee and met the owner, her son, daughter-in-law and new baby. I was invited to join them for supper at no extra charge and then to watch the Vietnam vs. Thailand international football match on TV. Vietnam won.

Monday, Nov.21:
After breakfast of Vietnamese beef noodle soup, I joined three young ladies, a Dane, her Danish/Vietnamese friend and the latter’s cousin. We spent most of the day, from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm cruising among the islands of Ha Long Bay. We visited two of the islands, the first to explore a large cave and the second to climb to a lookout on the summit from which we had a splendid view of the bay and its many rocky islands. This area is now a famous tourist destination and is a “must-see” destination in Vietnam. There were tourists from several countries including: France, China, Korea, Japan, etc. It was passed the peak season, so tour boats of which there is a substantial fleet were only part full or tied up. Our boat with a capacity of 18-20 had only the four of us as paying passengers. It is indeed a spectacular place, but would be better still if there was less haze in the air. I was told that, on clear days of the rainy season it is much better. I joined my host (Mr. Fix-it) for beer and sausages followed by a Vietnamese supper at the German restaurant near my hotel.

Tuesday, Nov 22:
In the morning I took it easy and treated myself to a fancy breakfast in Hanoi Restaurant Dong 85,000 ($ 6.00) and then wandered along the beach until lunch which I bought on the sidewalk for Dong 9,000 (65 cents). In the afternoon I returned to Hanoi in a mini bus with back-packers from Ireland and Canada (Montreal). It took a while to find a hotel in downtown Hanoi but finally I settled in to Freedom Hotel at US $20.00 per night. Later that evening I visited my favorite restaurant the Green Tangerine and dined with an Australian couple I met there. They are writers. We discussed books and engineering as we ate.

Wednesday, Nov 23:
I breakfasted at Mocha’s coffee house where I met a young American lady working in the textile industry. She was in Vietnam to recruit a compliance inspector to monitor factories manufacturing garments for her company in the U.S. Spent the rest of the day organizing my trip to Nepal. That evening I had supper at Mama Rosa’s Restaurant where I bumped into a Canadian foursome from Quebec City. One of the group was a Ms. Pinsent from Grand Falls (NF). She has lived many years in Quebec City and speaks flawless French. That evening I decided to take in a concert at the Opera House where the Budapest Opera Orchestra was playing. Unfortunately, the tickets were “sold out” and only scalpers tickets were available at ridiculous prices $100!! I’ll wait until I visit Budapest to hear this orchestra.

Thursday, Nov 24:
I had breakfast again at Mocha’s and this time met a most interesting group of Americans: Suel Jones from Alaska a volunteer with Vietnam Freedom Village, Dan Rocovits – World Village foundation both organizations dedicated to repair some of the damages of the American War. Later a couple of young film makers joined us. They were researching the history of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Hopefully, we will see the results of their efforts on PBS someday soon. My project today was to visit and photograph the Long Bien Bridge and Sông Hông River (Red River). This bridge is very famous as it was the sole link to the coal fields of Haiphong which were vital to the Vietnamese war effort. The Americans made many attempts to take the bridge out, but the Vietnamese displayed extraordinary ingenuity in making repairs and were able to put the bridge back in service with extraordinary rapidity after each attack. The result is a curious looking bridge that appears as if each section was designed by a different engineer!! After a late lunch I attended a concert at the famous water puppet theatre a unique production in which the puppets all float in a shallow pool of water.
Then at 6:20 pm I left for the airport en route to Bangkok and Kathmandu.

After a three week vacation in Nepal I returned again to Hanoi on Dec 12.

Monday, Dec 12:
I got up early to avoid problems at Bangkok Airport. The flight from Bangkok to Hanoi with Thai Airlines was routine. Hanoi on arrival was overcast and cool so I could comfortably wear my new Nepali jacket. Staff at Asean Hotel were glad to see me again.

Tuesday, Dec 13:
For my last full day in Vietnam I decided to join a group tour to visit Perfume Pakoda, that is not a pagoda at all but a cave which has been a place of worship for many centuries.

Wednesday-Thursday, Dec 14:
I left Hanoi at 1:30 p.m. for Taipei, a trip of about two and a half hours arriving around 5:00 p.m. I checked into Transit Hotel until 9:30 p.m., then caught the plane to Vancouver at midnight arriving at 6:00 p.m. on Dec 14, thus regaining the day lost on the trip out! After supper and a movie on television I fell asleep and did not wake up until 2:00 p.m. so much for the benefit of an extra day!

Thursday, Dec 15:
I went over to SNC-Lavalin’s office for a debriefing session then caught Air Canada’s 2:00 p.m. flight to Montreal arriving just before midnight. So ended this most recent of Asian adventures.

I am attaching a few pictures that I took myself and also a power point presentation on Hanoi that Nicole found on the web. Enjoy.


Best wishes (belatedly).

Phil Helwig

Sept 22, 2007