News Article

CNA helps province bring home fallen of the Great War


3/31/2009 2:35:35 PM


Engineer Randal Power, left, and sculptor Morgan MacDonald display the recently rendered 33” wide crest (from which the mould for bronze casting will be formed), found atop the main plaque of the Beaumont Hamel monument to Newfoundland’s fallen soldiers of the First World War.

College of the North Atlantic (CNA) is playing a part in symbolically bringing home some of Newfoundland’s fallen from the First World War by using state-of-the-art technology from its Office of Applied Research (OAR).

Engineer Randal Power, CNA’s resident inventor, recently spent several days in France examining the Beaumont Hamel Newfoundland Memorial Site. Comprised of 30-hectares, on the very ground where the Battle of the Somme began and so many Newfoundlanders lost their lives, the memorial site has several monuments including a poignant tribute to Newfoundland. One of these is a great bronze caribou stag, the emblem of the Newfoundland Regiment, and a collection of three bronze tablets that bear the names of 814 members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, the Royal Naval Reserve, and the Newfoundland Mercantile Marines who gave their lives in World War I and have no known gravesites. In an initiative of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, the plaques will be replicated and mounted in Bowring Park, St. John’s, next to the existing replica of the caribou.

Power and a team from Morgan Sculptures Inc., the company responsible for replicating the plaques and installing them in Bowring Park, painstakingly studied, documented and scanned the three-piece monument.

“There are two small pieces and one large,” Power explains. “The small ones have a height of approximately 175cm by approximately 56cm wide. The large one stands at approximately five feet tall by eight feet wide – it’s basically a wall unto itself!”

Morgan MacDonald, sculptor and operator of Morgan Sculptures Inc., (creator of the bronze piece The Rower, located at St. John’s Quidi Vidi Lake and more recently A Time located on George Street) noted the immense aid CNA’s technology has provided in the project.

“Because of this technology we have been able to not only create replicas of key design elements in the bronze plaques for here in Newfoundland but also preserve the history and culture of the province by digitally cataloging data from the existing plaques in France through real 3D data.”

With the OAR’s in-house 3D printer, Power will produce plastic emblems with which the bronze crests will be cast by MacDonald. The printer uses computer files created by Power with Computer Aided Drafting based on the data he compiled and interpreted from scans of the tablets in France. He describes the technology as a combination of ink jet printer and hot glue gun.

“It’s called fused deposition modelling; the computer breaks it down into a series of layers that are 0.01 inches thick, or about twice the thickness of a sheet of paper. The machine then prints layer on top of layer until you have your item,” explains Power. “We can have anything we want in any shape in the physical world – overnight.”

He explains that these moulds created by the 3D printer will be slightly larger than the finished product.

“The moulds will be 1.5 per cent bigger than the object to allow for shrinkage of bronze once you cast it,” says Power. “It wouldn’t be noticeable to anyone looking at it but we want to do it right.”

It is a triumph of CNA’s cutting edge technology and expertise, says Dr. Mohammad Iqbal, chair of Applied Research, that the original monument can be replicated without manipulation.

“The Beaumont Hamel replica is generated without even touching the master plaque, using our advancements in virtual and manufacturing sciences,” say Iqbal. “It speaks to our strength in innovative R&D that is based on the principle of relevance to the community.”

The technology has previously allowed the department to develop prototypes of original inventions created by private and public sector partners; CNA is particularly proud to provide the province with an innovative solution in bringing this monumental piece of history and culture back home, says President Jean Madill.

“I am very pleased that the college is able to assist the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, the City of St. John’s, the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, the Regiment Council, and the Royal Canadian Legion in this endeavour,” says President Madill.

“In its 45 years, College of the North Atlantic has become fundamental to the future success of Newfoundland and Labrador, and to be part of an undertaking that is so entrenched in the early history of this wonderful province is truly an honour.”

The plaques will be unveiled on July 1 in Bowring Park. Though the date is significant in that it is Canada Day, many Newfoundlanders mark it as Memorial Day, the date of remembrance for the Beaumont Hamel battle, which began July 1, 1916.
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Media contact:

Tanya Alexander
Public Information Officer
College of the North Atlantic
709.643.7928
Tanya.alexander@cna.nl.ca

Or

Stephen Lee
Marketing and Communications Manager
College of the North Atlantic
709.643.7721
Stephen.lee@cna.nl.ca