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Nice & Monaco regional weekend

A visit report from Ian Gillis

The 702 km across France from Tessel Bas to Nice is a fair distance, but it was a lovely sunny day and the sweeping curves and contours of the A8 Autoroute are always a pleasure to drive as it skirts the Massif d'Esterel and Cannes before its final approach to Nice. The SatNav delivered us accurately to the entrance of the subterranean Parking Grimaldi, only a short walk from the Hotel Mercure Grimaldi which proved to be a comfortable place to stay. Having renewed our acquaintance with the arriving travellers we adjourned to "Le Boccaccio" seafood restaurant for a rewarding dinner.

The "Decameron" that ensued started with a visit to the Malpasset Dam north of Fréjus, scene of the 1959 disaster when the five-year-old dam filled for the first time during a heavy rain storm and ruptured, unleashing nearly 50 million cubic metres of water down the valley and into the unsuspecting town of Fréjus at 21:13h on the 2nd December 1959.

The walk to the site of the dam from the park beneath the A8 Autoroute is a pleasant stroll through a valley in the Var, until you notice enormous boulders of broken concrete and the sides of the valley that are still scoured of vegetation over 50 years later, mute testament to the force of a 60m-high wall of water unleashed by the fractured dam. A chastening thought for the engineers amongst us. I confess that I hadn't heard of the catastrophe before - surprising considering that I was 20 years old when it happened; But the world was a larger place then, and news reporting wasn't what it is now. But over 420 unfortunate people died and their relatives will never forget that fateful night.

Rather than delving into the detail of the failure and its consequences, I append the following links for those who would like to know more: the contemporary newsreel accounts are particularly illuminating.

Text: Short textual history in English for Tourists

Video:
55s Newsreel (US English)
23s Newsreel (French)
27s Newsreel (French)
2m 3s Newsreel (French)
56m 53s Documentary (French)

As a light relief the group then toured the Clos des Roses vignoble, with a dégustation of the excellent local wine and a buffet lunch. The coach then toured the magnificent coast of the Massif d'Esterel and stopped at Cannes where we walked along La Croisette and gazed longingly at all the billionaires' yachts.

Back in Nice we had a short time to shower and to don the posh suits or posh frocks and stick the aching legs under the table of the Le Grand Balcon restaurant for the gala dinner - mercifully everyone was too tired for speeches and jokes and we got to bed at a reasonable time ready for the technical day in Monaco.

As the technical day coincided with the England/France rugby match a coach equipped with a radio was demanded and there was much friendly banter on the way to Monaco between the French and the English and the slightly-confused, French-resident English. To earn our lunch on the technical day we had five lectures - fortunately they were interesting so I got away with only a short "long blink" and no-one was caught snoring or snorting in mid-lecture although some were seen consulting their smartphones for the match score.

We had an introduction to Monaco, a résumé of the Floating Harbour project, a description of floating devices to allow oil tankers to "plug into" oil pipelines at sea, a recap on the Malpasset dam failure and a description of cold "sticking plasters" to repair and reinforce hull and tank failures in flammable environments using composite materials.

After a sandwich lunch we visited the floating jetty. The scale of this is difficult to convey: imagine a floating four-story car park 352m long, 28m wide and 25m high. This was prefabricated in Algeciras, Spain, and towed into position at Port Hercule, Monaco. It is connected to the mainland by a spherical "towball" of diameter 8m to allow movement. At the base is a 44m wide flat plate which encloses an enormous volume of water, the inertia of which acts as a "fixed seawall" to attenuate any incoming surges. The "car park" is not just an analogy - the jetty does indeed provide four car "decks" for 360 badly-needed car parking spaces. I was told that in the (unlikely) event of a tsunami in the Mediterranean the jetty would not move more than a few centimetres - which is more than can be said for the yachts behind it!

The jetty is just a short walk from the Monaco Oceanographic Museum - lots of well-presented sea creatures, alive and dead, and a somewhat anomalous exhibit showing the wedding clothes of Prince Albert and his bride Charlene.

By then our legs were giving up and it was good to be kids again and ride on the "petit train", which didn't exactly reach F1 speeds in the Tunnel, but I could dream…

A nice dinner in the Restaurant Aurore with its sympatico Italian staff and good cooking culminated in the traditional telling of ancient jokes about ancient engineers by ancient engineers and the traditional Lemoncello shower for lovely birthday girl, Ann Dunbar.

And so to Nice and to bed.

For Sunday we almost had a "grasse matinée" - a 09:30 start with a tour of Nice, a 2:30 walking marathon taking in the Old Town and the ruins of the Castle on La Colline du Chateau - very interesting and a good contrast to the many areas of faceless concrete apartment blocks. 

A farewell lunch for those departing and to refuel those attending the ICE AGM was held in the Marlone Café. We stayed an extra night and I took advantage of the Sunday afternoon off with a swim in the warm water off the pebbly beach of Nice.

We had an uneventful trip back on Monday, apart from the SatNav taking us on a diversion via the N7 to avoid real or imaginary adverse traffic reports on the TMC system.

In conclusion, we had an interesting and enjoyable time, renewed our acquaintance with old friends, ate good food and drank good wine and we owe it all to the ICE and the impeccable organisation of William Powles and his Girl Friday, Jocelyne - nous vous remercions mille fois!

Selected photos for this text can be found at http://tinyurl.com/5upw62j
A video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxC2TeyKEOc

 

 

Aérodynamique Eiffel (Eiffel’s Wind Tunnel): Visit of the IET French Network on 17th June 2011

This visit was organized for those of us who were unable to attend the previous visit made in January this year.  IET members and guests, including representatives from our ICE and IMechE sister institutions, totaled twenty persons, which is the maximum number allowed per visit.  Our speaker and guide was Mr. Martin Peter, from 1983 to 2001 Director of the establishment, which is situated in Auteuil in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris.  Following a talk outlining the life and work of Gustave Eiffel, probably France’s most famous engineer, we were able to view numerous historic artifacts and photographs. Then came the highlight of the visit, taking a close look at the wind tunnel in operation.

Gustave Eiffel was born in 1832 and received his engineering education at the Ecole Centrale de Paris.  During several decades the main thrust of his career was directed towards the design, prefabrication and erection of metallic structures, in particular bridges, still in use in France and in other countries throughout the world.  The framework of the Statue of Liberty in New York is also the work of Eiffel.  Of course his most outstanding edifice is the tower that bears his name, realized for the Exposition Universelle de Paris in 1889.  At that time the effect of wind on structures was taken into account by an empirical approach.  Eiffel is reputed to have proclaimed repeatedly “Le vent a toujours été pour moi un sujet de préoccupation.  Il est un enemi”.  Subsequently, by a rigorous programme of experimentation, he was to lay the foundation of the science of aerodynamics, in particular for its application to aviation.

With his “Tower” in place, Eiffel in the early eighteen nineties installed at its summit a station to measure and record wind velocities and other parameters.  Progressively some twenty other stations were added to cover the whole national territory, which led to the systematic collection of data over many years.  This overview formed the basis on which the science of meteorology was subsequently established.
Eiffel also used his Tower for a comprehensive series of experiments concerning the forces generated due to wind resistance of test pieces of various shapes attached to a test rig in free fall from the second platform of the Tower, guided by a steel cable in tension, a vertical distance of 115 metres, with a braking system operative during the final 21 metres.  However Eiffel was the first to recognize the limitations of this approach, in particular in the field of aviation, which in the nineteen hundreds was already advancing at an accelerating pace.  Rather than propel the test piece through the air, a better approach was to keep the test piece static, and subject it to an artificial wind, generated by a fan drawing air through a tunnel, with means to measure accurately the wind velocity and the forces to which the test piece was subjected.  Eiffel built his initial wind tunnel on the Champs de Mars, close to the Tower, but this was only a temporary arrangement, due to the site having to be vacated.  This led him in 1912 to find a permanent site in Auteuil, at the time a village incorporated into the 16th Arrondissement. The wind tunnel was constructed in custom-built premises to form an effective aerodynamic laboratory.  It was to become the prototype for many others throughout the world.

By this time Gustave Eiffel, at 80 years of age, was already deeply engaged in aeronautical research and development.  Tests were made on scale models of complete aircraft as well as on wing sections and components, such as propellers and undercarriages.  During the First World War the laboratory was to play an important part in developing fighter aircraft.  Eiffel continued in activity until almost the end of his life in 1923.

The wind tunnel was to outlive its “father” by a large margin, for it has been in constant operation to this day, and next year it will celebrate its centenary.  During many decades all of the major French manufacturers of aircraft called on the services of the Aérodynamique Eiffel.  They were followed in due course by the leading motor manufacturers, both for mass produced vehicles and for racing cars.  In more recent years the laboratory has been involved in investigating the interaction between wind and buildings or even whole complexes of buildings.

At times the very existence of the laboratory was in question, but its nomination in 1984 as a Monument Historique ensures its ongoing protection.  In recent years the laboratory has operated under the auspices of the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment.  Consequently, as the name implies, its activity is centred on the interaction of wind with the built environment, but faithful to its earlier vocation Aérodynamique Eiffel continues working in the domain of motor sports, from Formula One to rallies and Paris-Dakar.  After almost a century of activity the laboratory has generated an impressive volume of documents.  There are also numerous documents associated with the previous activities of Eiffel, which are held by other organizations.  A concerted action is now in hand to locate these documents, to list and preserve them and record them in electronic format.

We thanked Mr. Peter for an interesting visit, which enabled us to appreciate the immense scale of the achievements of Gustave Eiffel and the heritage he has left in the form of a wind tunnel still operational almost a hundred years after its realization.

PJN  29/06/2011  

The Bacalan/Bastide Lifting Bridge at Bordeaux

Report from Ian Gillis

A group of engineers from the ICE, the IET, the I Mech E and Engineers of South West France (ESWF) visited the construction site of the Pont Bacalan/Bastide and visited the beautiful city of Bordeaux. The visit was organised by the ICE following an idea by Joëlle Chagneau/Philip Ouvry of the IET.

There's a relevant video and a selection of still photographs

"The Port of the Moon, port city of Bordeaux in south-west France, is inscribed as an inhabited historic city, an outstanding urban and architectural ensemble, created in the age of the Enlightenment, whose values continued up to the first half of the 20th century, with more protected buildings than any other French city except Paris. It is also recognized for its historic role as a place of exchange of cultural values over more than 2,000 years, particularly since the 12th century due to commercial links with Britain and the Low Lands. Urban plans and architectural ensembles of the early 18th century onwards place the city as an outstanding example of innovative classical and neoclassical trends and give it an exceptional urban and architectural unity and coherence. Its urban form represents the success of philosophers who wanted to make towns into melting pots of humanism, universality and culture." (From the UNESCO World Heritage Convention ).

However the opposite bank of the river is still the poor relation - ill-served by bridges and with no architectural merit, an extra bridge is desperately needed to spur the redevelopment of the La Bastide side of the Garonne - even the old Pont de Pierre was built only so Napoleon could get his armies to Spain.

Our group of engineers were treated to an interesting morning lecture by Egis staff, Egis being a partner in the design and build consortium GTM-Vinci, on the design rationale for the bridge, including the various designs considered but rejected and those of the competitors. We also caught a glimpse of the frustrations involved in keeping not only the city of Bordeaux happy, but also the close involvement of UNESCO in the appearance of the project and the trials of conforming with the aesthetics laid down by them.

Big projects of this kind have a fascination, not just for the amount of money involved but the sheer scale of the enterprise, the need for detailed planning and the potentially vast cost of mistakes.

After a pleasant lunch in La Petite Gironde, appropriately on the rive droite, we were kitted up in hard hats, fluorescent jackets and gumboots to see the beast itself. Both bases for the lifting pylons and the four "buffer" islands which protect the bridge against collision by ships were in place and the first "stubs" for the slip-cast pylons were in position, together with an access tower. All six caissons were pre-cast downstream and floated into position by
tugs, then accurately sunk in an operation which must have kept many fingers crossed for some time.

The bridge deck is made in Italy, near Venice, and will arrive in five pieces by barges routed through the Mediterranean via the Strait of Gibraltar. In operation the deck will be lifted in less than 11 minutes by two 132KW motors, the weight of the deck being counterbalanced by four counterweights of 600 tonnes, one in each pylon. Completion is scheduled for the end of 2012.

Saturday evening was an opportunity for the ladies to put on the pretty frocks and for the men to wonder where they had put that tie and jacket - we dined in the Restaurant Dubern in the elegant Allées de Tourny.

On Sunday morning the gorgeous weather continued and we were able to join a guided tour of Bordeaux and its architectural riches, before  
farewell lunch in the shadow of the Eglise St Pierre and the return home. For Christine it was a somewhat different sort of birthday - the bottle of champagne we'd put by for the evening stayed in the cellar and we were early to bed after a tiring but satisfying weekend.

This wasn't by any means the first time I'd been to Bordeaux, but I saw many aspects of the city that I hadn't seen before which was a bonus to the interest of the technical visit. Many thanks and full marks to the ICE for the impeccable organisation of the visit by Robert Broatch and the local chairman Lucy Rew.

IET France Network Technical Visit to Cantal and Eiffel's Garabit Viaduct

Report from Ian Gillis

Novices Arrive.

The Massif Central is a vast monolith covering one-sixth of the area of mainland France and rising to almost 1900 m. It's the source of the Loire, the Dordogne and the Charente and it feeds the Seine, the Loire, the Rhone and the Garonne.

Our visit was to Saint-Flour in Cantal(15), easily reached from North or South by the gentle slopes of the A75 autoroute. For us the easterly journey from the Lot & Garonne was via Cahors,  climbing the cracks in the limestone plateau of the Causses du Quercy and then via Figeac and Aurillac to the Volcans d'Auvergne. We drove through the ski resort of Le Lioran on the slopes of the Plomb du Cantal at 1885 m, with the autumn colours of the trees at their best in the brilliant afternoon sunshine, on a real drivers' road with fast sweeping bends and little traffic.

Our monastic cell in the former seminary of the Maison des Planchettes in Saint-Flour ( http://www.maison-des-planchettes.com ) had thankfully been upgraded with central heating and en-suite facilities, the Eighteenth Century basalt staircase showed some wear from the 258 years of shuffling feet, but there was a lift too and both led to a room with a magnificent view of the Cantal countryside. To earn our supper we attended a fascinating presentation by rail buff Eric Fargier on the history of French railways, showing the first, isolated lines, then the frenetic creation of new lines, with difficult areas like the Auvergne being the last to be reached, but finally resulting in an extensive network which then decayed as road transport took over.

Garabit of Cheese, Gromit? 

Next day the Cooperative Laitière de Valuéjols enlightened our knowledge of the processes involved in the production of "jeune", "entre-deux/doré" and "vieux" Cantal cheese, the merits of pasteurized or raw milk and the benefits of the cooperative approach to cheese production. Dressed up and sanitized in hairnets, plastic coats and overshoes we followed the manufacturing process from milk to the large cylindrical blocks of cheese.

In an appropriate conjunction of railways and cheese, we then visited one of the three local storage and maturation areas for cheese, housed in disused railway tunnels. Each tunnel accommodates up to 2,500 cheeses in a controlled environment; once more we dressed up in the plastic suits to view the cheeses maturing quietly in a haze of ammoniacal fumes.

At lunch at St Chély d'Apcher we were able to choose the cheese with a degree of acquired confidence!

At this point the programme scheduled a train ride across Eiffel's Garabit Viaduct ( http://www.garabit-viaduc-eiffel.com ), with a talk from the Saint-Flour stationmaster; unfortunately the French unions and the railway workers had other plans and the stationmaster had the job of reuniting umpteen travelling schoolchildren with their parents. Nevertheless we were able to visit the viaduct: it was truly impressive; the pinkish paint contrasting sharply with the blue sky, the green backdrop and the blue of the water in the lake held back by the Grandval dam in the Gorges de la Truyère. Massive in size, the unsupported span is 165 m and the arch height was 122 m when first built, reduced to 90 m now the dam has raised the water level. Conceived in 1878 by Ingénieur Léon Boyer, who suggested the architect Gustave Eiffel following his  successful Maria Pia viaduct project in Porto, the design was an audacious but ultimately successful project which undoubtedly paved the way for the Eiffel Tower which was completed five years after Garabit was completed in 1884.

Back in our temporary home in the seminary we were treated to a visit to the adjacent diocesan library where some 20,000 ecclesiastical books dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries are stored, conserved and archived; the archivist described her work. An interesting point was the evolution of archive media from microfiche to floppy disk to CD to DVD to ? Is there a storage medium which lasts indefinitely and for which there is perpetual support?

Patricia Vergne-Roches is a historian and an expert on the life and work of Eiffel - and drop-dead gorgeous to boot. Unsurprisingly she is also a French TV star, having appeared on the France 3 television programme "Des Racines et des Ailes" in April 2009. She gave us a fascinating talk on the background and the repercussions of the Garabit Viaduct project. The steep climb to the mairie was rewarded by an aperitif at a civic reception, where we were amazed to find that Patricia was also our host, in her röle of town councillor. The mairie is perched on top of the columnar basalt outcrop that supports the high town of Saint-Flour and affords wonderful views over the surrounding Cantal countryside. After dinner at the seminary we rejoined the coach and returned to the Garabit Viaduct, this time to admire the floodlit and illuminated viaduct.

The Skirl o' the Cabrettes.

Saturday morning was scheduled to be a return to the viaduct, this time to view it below and to climb into the structure and "kick the tyres"; this was cancelled since we'd already viewed it from below and the French rail strike prevented the visit. So some had a further talk from the valiant Patricia, some walked a little and others drove along the scenic Gorges de la Truyère. Lunch was at the Hotel Beau Site which was indeed beautifully situated - even before the viaduct was built - and we had tables overlooking the beast in all its grandeur. The afternoon was occupied with a guided tour of the Saint-Flour Cathédrale Saint-Pierre - notable for its Black Christ figure and some disturbing Judgement Day frescoes - and the Musée de la Haute Auvergne. The latter had a display of French musical instruments including French bagpipes (cabrettes) with a drone and a chanter and blown by small bellows beneath the elbow. After dinner at the seminary two local musicians played the cabrette and the accordion, with a delightful demonstration of the bourrée auvergnate by a troupe of local dancers dressed in traditional costumes and headgear. When played with the accordion the drone of the cabrette is not used. I felt grateful and humbled by the fact that some 16 people had made a real effort to put on all that clobber and spend their Saturday evening entertaining our motley crew of engineers and spouses.

Snow Use Moaning.

Saint-Flour is a picturesque town but the Sunday morning weather didn't do it justice; there was ice on the cars in the morning and as we started the town tour it started to snow quite heavily. One or two gave up but most brave souls braved the weather but the wet, dark grey, basalt stone and slate-tiled roofs had me yearning for the limestone walls and red roman tiles of home! The autoroute A75 to Massiac and our destination the Musée Elise Rieuf should have been no problem, but it crosses the Col de la Fageole at 1114 m, so the blizzard conditions were not pleasant and the speed camera on the way was having a lean time. However everyone arrived safely and a real treat was in store for us. The curators have assembled a magnificent collection of works by Marguerite Jeanne Carpentier (the maitre of Elise Rieuf) - paintings, engravings and sculpture - with some magnificent large Rodinesque canvasses. See http://www.musee-elise-rieuf.org/marguerite_jeanne_carpentier.html and http://www.musee-elise-rieuf.org/Wiki . The husband and wife team were so charming and welcoming and so dedicated to their passion for the art that the visit made a wonderful finale to the Cantal visit.

Vachement Chouette! 

At the final lunch at the Hotel l'Ander I reflected on the weekend; it was a pity that a couple of the highlights were missed due to the retirement strike action, but the programme was bursting with other interesting events, we had time to chat with our Civil and mechanical engineering friends and the Saint-Flour town council and the Cantal cheese industry will all not forget the IET in a hurry! Gold star for organiser Mike Wrigley and his manager Jitka! But please can I have a rest from Chou Farci and Aligot until my waistline contracts a little?

Photos at http://bit.ly/90VeZi

© Ian Gillis

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ICE Technical Visit to Lyon

A personal view from IET Member Ian Gillis