BrickbyBrick

By Colleen Turner | Photography by Stuart Gradon

Engineer aims to restore luste of masonry, a method of construction that's lost its appeal in modern day cities.

Shelley Lissel lives in a Varsity home that has, of all things, painted brickwork out front.

I’m ashamed to say that it’s painted,” said Lissel, a true traditionalist when it comes to building materials. “Why would someone paint their brick?”

Lissel is a masonry expert; she eschews modern conveniences such as steel and concrete in favour of stone and unpainted brick. At 30, she is one of the University of Calgary’s youngest professors, and she’s already developing a reputation as an excellent teacher and researcher in the Department of Civil Engineering. An award from the Canada Foundation for Innovation has helped her create one of Canada’s only masonry research centres in the CCIT building on campus.

It’s there that she uses her modern engineering know-how to improve and study a centuries-old building method. Her current research projects focus on evaluating the use of FRPs (fiber reinforced polymers), which are increasingly being used by industry to reinforce new masonry projects or rehabilitate old, damaged masonry. Although steel has been used for decades to reinforce masonry, it corrodes when exposed to moisture or salt.

Over the summer, Lissel and a graduate student built a shake frame, a rectangular steel frame that shakes violently to simulate the effects of an earthquake on building materials. She will now research the effectiveness of FRPs in critical wall-to-wall connections and wall-to-roof connections. It’s these connection areas that fail in earthquakes, rather than the walls themselves. “We know that steel works, but it corrodes. So I want to see if there are problems using other materials in these connection areas.”

Lissel will also use the shake frame to explore ways for people living in developing countries to reinforce their homes using indigenous material. She plans to test the effectiveness of bamboo, sugar cane, and vines as a masonry reinforcement.

“ Ultimately, maybe that will save lives,” said Lissel. “Because now, we tell people to reinforce their homes with things like steel and cement, which are too expensive and not widely available to them.”

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