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| A well-thought out setup. I'm serious, it worked out really well :D |
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| Reusing covies, thanks GNCTR! |
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| Promotional picture worthy, couldn't have done it without Richard |
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| It can hold a car! |
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| The subject for our running tests |
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| Those are the 'yay for good weather and successful experiment' smiles |
So, a bit of backstory, I had just returned from New Orleans 9:30 pm on October 1st. I was to meet Sriram at 8:00 am on October 2nd to get the last of things to pack in the CPATT Sprinter van before we departed for Montreal at 9:00am. Needless to say, all of my planning had to happen before I left for NOLA Thursday, so I was super prepared, and yet I still forgot my pajamas (don't worry I packed spare clothes and I didn't embarrass myself).
Sriram and Scott left in the rental car to take care of some errands and they would be meeting us at the ONroute stop past Toronto. They were also in charge of picking up the a 12th cable to run from an accelerometer to the signal conditioner. I couldn't find the last one in the lab so we unfortunately had to order one. Upon calling the supplier than morning, I had a bit of a panic when the receptionist said 'Oh ya, we shipped it'. Luckily they also had one at their office which we had to get before 5 pm.
Richard, Pampa, and I tossed the rest of the equipment that Richard had not yet packed on Monday into the tall van (as wide as a pick up truck but tall enough to stand in). We knew what we were generally getting ourselves into thanks to some pictures and dimensions courtesy of Alex's people at MAADI doing some surveying for us in the summer. We knew we needed long ladders to reach the midspan of the bridge from the underneath complete with fall arrest equipment for Richard (the only one trained). We had our non-destructive accelerometer mounting brackets all machined and ready to go. Toss in our personal luggage, about 4 laptops, Sriram's bicycle and all the cabling we'd need and away we went. Driving to Montreal was so uninterrupted, we forgot to point out the CN Tower to Pampa (this also happened on the way back!). Even just driving on the 401, Pampa was impressed by the colours of the leaves, which reminded me that she's only been from Pearson to Waterloo since she moved here on September 1. Well, she was going to drive through/visit Canada's two largest cities, a great outing for her!
Arriving to Brossard, we park the van up on the path and we have our first look around. The first impression while walking along the bridge was that 'wow, this is bouncy, yay we'll have data!'. We all got excited because we have known about the bridge for almost a year but we finally got to see it in person. Due to the embankments, 3 of the 6 locations (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 bridge lengths on the north and south side) were easily accessible from the ground without a ladder. The centre north location required the long ladder off of the embankment and the centre south location was over the water. For this one, Richard put the base of the ladder in the creek and used the step ladder horizontally from the channel side to walk out to the ladder. I trust he knew what he was doing because he worked extensively as a rigger on telecommunication towers.We decide that since they're easily accessible, they could easily be taken/vandalized during the night, so we waited until the morning. Sriram and Scott met up with us with the crucial cable. Apparently there was a giant traffic jam and Sriram walked the last 1/2km to the supplier to get it before they closed (and it was still after 5pm but we got lucky). We had a nice relaxing dinner, talking about the future of the structures lab, planning and such (not that I could really contribute but it was informative none the less). Oh yes, and Richard (and Scott somewhat) gave me grief for not letting them know that the hotel had a pool and a sauna. :P
Wednesday morning we wake up nice and early, get breakfast at the hotel, and head out to site. Unloading stuff bit by bit, we all have our own tasks to do, and it worked out really great. Richard got the mounts on the bridge, Sriram installed the accelerometers on the mounts, I laid out the cabling with Pampa's help, while Scott fielded questions from Jaques from the Aluminum Association and Alex from MAADI. Alex was a really interesting person to talk to because he's the owner of the company that made the aluminum pedestrian bridge that we were working on, and that would also be providing UW with our own 70' aluminum pedestrian bridge. He's clearly excited about his work and puts all his effort into his company. It only took a couple of hours to set up, checking the working condition of the accelerometers, signal conditioners, low-pass Butterworth filters, and data acquisition software. I didn't want something to bugger up and not know where it was coming from.
Tests we did were; heel drop for free vibration, single person walking, two people walking synchronously or asynchronously, a runner, a cyclist, jumping off the railing, a walking crowd, a running crowd, ambient vibration, and (our favourite by Alex's request) driving a car. What I found funny was that I was left on the bridge for an extended amount of time to wait for random pedestrians and run the data acquisition for them. Meanwhile, everyone else went for lunch, though they also picked something up for me, I felt funny being exiled to the middle of the bridge. Then when Sriram saw someone coming he'd yell and point saying 'Ann! Random person!'. Now, being Montreal, not everyone would speak English, so I thought that it was rather funny for pedestrians.
By mid-afternoon we were done collecting data, cleanup was fast and we were all done. I'd say it was a super successful day, especially since even the evening before, it was calling for rain. It was dry and fair all day. It looked a little cloudy towards the end but we got lucky. We headed back to the hotel where we regrouped and went downtown to join Alex at a pub. We first dropped in on the MAADI office, which was in a tech incubator-type centre like the Accelerator Centre in the Research and Technology Park at UW. Since Alex was crazy busy, we decided to meet him downtown later, and went for a walk. This is when Pampa got really excited about being in Montreal (which made me proud of my hometown). Walking along Peel and then St. Catherines, we stopped for a few pictures.
Meeting up with Alex, he talked about some of the interesting projects he has been a part of, including floating barges in Florida and pedestrian bridges around Quebec. We were able to stop by his one project, which were bridges leading from an old boat renovated into a floating spa docked at the Montreal harbour. Needless to say, the pictures show that it is a very high-end trendy place now.
This also meant that we walked through the old part of Montreal, cobblestone, European buildings, and all. It was great, I hadn't personally been there in...ages really. It was great for Pampa and a bunch of the others either hadn't been before or hadn't been in a while. I love Montreal <3 p="p">
The next morning we took at a leisurely pace where Scott took us to see his family house. The Walbridge family had a large plot of land near Bedford, QC, about an hour south of Montreal in the townships. On the land is Quebec's only 12-sided barn, still standing from around the 1880's. It was really neat to see because inside the barn, the centre platform rotated to allow easy entrance/exit of horse and wagon, but also easy loading of hay bales into the stalls. The roof work on the barn was complex and quite remarkable. Richard was very interested in the history and was gushing over how things were built. We went for a bit of a walk in the forested area, passing an old sugar shack where they made maple syrup. Since the trees were changing colours it was really something special. While Scott had to meeting at the family house, the rest of us ventured to the café in Mystic (the hamlet). They had an extensive set of chocolates, preserves and everything made form scratch. This is where Richard found maple syrup pie that was closer to my mom's tarte au sucre than the one we had the first night. I was all excited, yay French Canadian dessert that's pure sugar.
Oh yes, and to Bedford and almost all the way home, I drove the Sprinter van. That's right, on the 20 I drove the van, and confidently at that! :D I was proud, though I did have a bit of guidance from Richard to start since I had never driven anything bigger than my family's Chevy Malibu. Getting home at 9:30pm, I was tired from having travelled over 4000km by plane and 1200km by car, but I had a lot of fun, and the research trip seems successful (from what I can tell so far). Of course, here's hoping that the data looks nice, then it'll all be worthwhile!
Richard, Pampa, and I tossed the rest of the equipment that Richard had not yet packed on Monday into the tall van (as wide as a pick up truck but tall enough to stand in). We knew what we were generally getting ourselves into thanks to some pictures and dimensions courtesy of Alex's people at MAADI doing some surveying for us in the summer. We knew we needed long ladders to reach the midspan of the bridge from the underneath complete with fall arrest equipment for Richard (the only one trained). We had our non-destructive accelerometer mounting brackets all machined and ready to go. Toss in our personal luggage, about 4 laptops, Sriram's bicycle and all the cabling we'd need and away we went. Driving to Montreal was so uninterrupted, we forgot to point out the CN Tower to Pampa (this also happened on the way back!). Even just driving on the 401, Pampa was impressed by the colours of the leaves, which reminded me that she's only been from Pearson to Waterloo since she moved here on September 1. Well, she was going to drive through/visit Canada's two largest cities, a great outing for her!
Arriving to Brossard, we park the van up on the path and we have our first look around. The first impression while walking along the bridge was that 'wow, this is bouncy, yay we'll have data!'. We all got excited because we have known about the bridge for almost a year but we finally got to see it in person. Due to the embankments, 3 of the 6 locations (1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 bridge lengths on the north and south side) were easily accessible from the ground without a ladder. The centre north location required the long ladder off of the embankment and the centre south location was over the water. For this one, Richard put the base of the ladder in the creek and used the step ladder horizontally from the channel side to walk out to the ladder. I trust he knew what he was doing because he worked extensively as a rigger on telecommunication towers.We decide that since they're easily accessible, they could easily be taken/vandalized during the night, so we waited until the morning. Sriram and Scott met up with us with the crucial cable. Apparently there was a giant traffic jam and Sriram walked the last 1/2km to the supplier to get it before they closed (and it was still after 5pm but we got lucky). We had a nice relaxing dinner, talking about the future of the structures lab, planning and such (not that I could really contribute but it was informative none the less). Oh yes, and Richard (and Scott somewhat) gave me grief for not letting them know that the hotel had a pool and a sauna. :P
Wednesday morning we wake up nice and early, get breakfast at the hotel, and head out to site. Unloading stuff bit by bit, we all have our own tasks to do, and it worked out really great. Richard got the mounts on the bridge, Sriram installed the accelerometers on the mounts, I laid out the cabling with Pampa's help, while Scott fielded questions from Jaques from the Aluminum Association and Alex from MAADI. Alex was a really interesting person to talk to because he's the owner of the company that made the aluminum pedestrian bridge that we were working on, and that would also be providing UW with our own 70' aluminum pedestrian bridge. He's clearly excited about his work and puts all his effort into his company. It only took a couple of hours to set up, checking the working condition of the accelerometers, signal conditioners, low-pass Butterworth filters, and data acquisition software. I didn't want something to bugger up and not know where it was coming from.
Tests we did were; heel drop for free vibration, single person walking, two people walking synchronously or asynchronously, a runner, a cyclist, jumping off the railing, a walking crowd, a running crowd, ambient vibration, and (our favourite by Alex's request) driving a car. What I found funny was that I was left on the bridge for an extended amount of time to wait for random pedestrians and run the data acquisition for them. Meanwhile, everyone else went for lunch, though they also picked something up for me, I felt funny being exiled to the middle of the bridge. Then when Sriram saw someone coming he'd yell and point saying 'Ann! Random person!'. Now, being Montreal, not everyone would speak English, so I thought that it was rather funny for pedestrians.
By mid-afternoon we were done collecting data, cleanup was fast and we were all done. I'd say it was a super successful day, especially since even the evening before, it was calling for rain. It was dry and fair all day. It looked a little cloudy towards the end but we got lucky. We headed back to the hotel where we regrouped and went downtown to join Alex at a pub. We first dropped in on the MAADI office, which was in a tech incubator-type centre like the Accelerator Centre in the Research and Technology Park at UW. Since Alex was crazy busy, we decided to meet him downtown later, and went for a walk. This is when Pampa got really excited about being in Montreal (which made me proud of my hometown). Walking along Peel and then St. Catherines, we stopped for a few pictures.
Meeting up with Alex, he talked about some of the interesting projects he has been a part of, including floating barges in Florida and pedestrian bridges around Quebec. We were able to stop by his one project, which were bridges leading from an old boat renovated into a floating spa docked at the Montreal harbour. Needless to say, the pictures show that it is a very high-end trendy place now.
 |
| Bridge to Bota Bota, a floating spa in Montreal, actually I didn't realize this picture has me (left), Pampa (center), and Sriram (right) |
The next morning we took at a leisurely pace where Scott took us to see his family house. The Walbridge family had a large plot of land near Bedford, QC, about an hour south of Montreal in the townships. On the land is Quebec's only 12-sided barn, still standing from around the 1880's. It was really neat to see because inside the barn, the centre platform rotated to allow easy entrance/exit of horse and wagon, but also easy loading of hay bales into the stalls. The roof work on the barn was complex and quite remarkable. Richard was very interested in the history and was gushing over how things were built. We went for a bit of a walk in the forested area, passing an old sugar shack where they made maple syrup. Since the trees were changing colours it was really something special. While Scott had to meeting at the family house, the rest of us ventured to the café in Mystic (the hamlet). They had an extensive set of chocolates, preserves and everything made form scratch. This is where Richard found maple syrup pie that was closer to my mom's tarte au sucre than the one we had the first night. I was all excited, yay French Canadian dessert that's pure sugar.
Oh yes, and to Bedford and almost all the way home, I drove the Sprinter van. That's right, on the 20 I drove the van, and confidently at that! :D I was proud, though I did have a bit of guidance from Richard to start since I had never driven anything bigger than my family's Chevy Malibu. Getting home at 9:30pm, I was tired from having travelled over 4000km by plane and 1200km by car, but I had a lot of fun, and the research trip seems successful (from what I can tell so far). Of course, here's hoping that the data looks nice, then it'll all be worthwhile!
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