A variety of alternative strategies have been developed for increasing the service life of reinforced concrete structures exposed to corrosive environments. An optimum design or repair strategy requires not only an estimate of upfront costs, but also the means to compare all associated costs against the potential extension to the life of the structure. Unfortunately, however, current asset management practice, which is typically based on tacit or implicit methods for asset condition assessment, performance prediction and management is no longer enough.

The stability of riverbanks has always been a concern for land-use planners, stakeholders as well as the Cities around the world. Construction activities can generate different types of dynamic waves and vibrations.

This research aims to thoroughly evaluate a new revolutionary generation of advanced cementitious materials: CNF-UHPFRC. It is composed of several phases that target to assess this competitive material at several levels and optimize it. One of its important and distinctive aspects is to tailor its constituents, correspondingly price, for each specific application, while maintaining the outstanding mechanical strength.
Another important aspect is the material behaviour at the structural level. This will be assessed by adopting the UHPFRC material in a new seismic strengthening profile.

To provide an economic solution to Canada’s ageing rail infrastructure, this project will investigate the use of helical piles in reinforcing railway embankments. This research will consist of the in-field monitoring of both test piles and a helical pile reinforced embankment. Prior to the embankment field investigation, test piles will be analyzed to provide a more accurate prediction of strength and failure mode for foundations using helical piles.

As many of the existing buildings are reaching almost the end of their actual design life, new buildings are replacing them with more innovative and complicated technologies. At the same time, there are concerns and uncertainties about probabilistic structural failures and undesired structural system behaviors. The performance of these building under loads such as earthquakes and other natural disasters are of great interest. Therefore, seismic damage assessment of buildings for post-earthquake rehabilitation have received significant attention in the rcent times.

Natural Canadian zeolite is an attractive mineral for the restoration of lands disturbed by the extraction of natural resources such as metals, oil and gas. Dr. Wonjae Chang’s Environmental Engineering Lab developed a dualmineral prototype, using Canadian zeolites, for the desalination of potash brine-impacted water. Dr. Chang also demonstrated the significant accumulation of residual potassium in the mineral adsorbents following multiple desalination cycles for potash brine-impacted water. In collaboration with ZMM® Canada Minerals Crop.

Recreational river waves are gaining more and more popularity, but there is not enough academic research to support them and a few companies around the globe can artificially create them by adjustable structures in rivers. Surf Anywhere, the Calgary-based partner organization in this research, is one of those few companies which has completed and is working on many wave projects in Canada, USA and Europe.

In this project, an advanced coupled geomechanical Finite Element (FE) numerical code will be developed to address the limitations of existing modeling tools in investigating the performance of infrastructure affected by frost action. For this purpose, a novel geomechanical constitutive model will be developed in the framework of the critical-state model for rate-dependent deformations of soils subjected to frost action and permafrost degradation. The constitutive models to be developed will be implemented in an in-house FE software.

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario reports that the masonry rate group cost per insurance claim is 2.44 times that if all other construction class rate groups. Manual lifting of concrete masonry units is required for masonry construction, and the pay masons receive is often commensurate with the number of units laid per day. Researchers have shown that, when lifting concrete masonry units, lower back compression forces in masons exceed the specific safe action limit despite the fact that the manual lifting load cutoff is not exceeded.

Porous Rubber Pavement (PRP) is a new type of permeable pavement in North America. It consists of stone aggregates, crumb rubber from recycled tires, and polyurethane as a binder. Due to a higher percentage of air voids (27% to 29%) and flexible nature, it offers extensive environmental and safety benefits, including improved stormwater management, reduced skid resistance, hydroplaning and greater potential for road traffic noise reduction. In the North American context, this material is currently used for low traffic roads and pedestrian walkways as a surface material.