An increased VOC emission from coatings (paints, varnishes, glue, resins) allows faster curing of the coating and stabilization of the emissions resulting in less residual VOC that can be emitted from the material in the future. Hence, it is desirable to emit the majority of the VOCs quickly so that once the building is in use negligible amount of VOC will be emitted.
Our research aims at developing highly interactive and inter-operative applications for use in complex simulation environments. Its goals are to develop a suite of modeling, simulation, and analysis tools for: (1) the planning and management of construction projects throughout their life phases from conception to operation, (2) the training of construction personnel, and (3) the exploration of construction management best practices.
The goal of the project is to further develop the Fork Configuration Damper – FCD (patents pending in 7 countries) to enable its implementation in real structures and its commercialization through a University of Toronto startup company. The FCD is a new damping technology developed at the University of Toronto to mitigate wind and earthquake vibrations of high-rise buildings by increasing the level of distributed viscous damping in the structure. The FCD is embedded within structural configurations that are commonly used for high-rise buildings.
The objective of this research is to develop methods for protection and restoration of critical infrastructure and services in face of large scale failures resulting from natural or man-made disasters, multiple equipment failures, or security attacks. The impact of such failures on Ontario’s ever-increasingly wired economy can be enormous, and the proposed solutions so far have been costly and inefficient. Therefore, exploring more efficient solutions could provide many benefits to critical service providers.
The objective of the proposed R & D project is to recommend a methodology for using tuned liquid damper as a passive damper placed in elevated tanks. A portion of contained liquid can be utilized to act as a tuned liquid damper with some modifications. This methodology can be used to control displacements due to wind and earthquake effects. A numerical program using the finite element method is proposed, which will be conducted to simulate a structure with a TLD attached and subjected to transient loading. The results of this study will be applied to elevated tanks.
In this proposed research, a MEMS quasi]static micromirror will be developed for laser beam steering for various applications such as projection displaying of CAD drawing for assembly of complex parts and biomedical microscopies for tissue and cardiovascular imaging and cancer and tumor detection. The micromirror to be developed is able to overcome the limitations of existing designs, i.e., increasing the response speed (reducing the settling time from 10ms ~20 ms to 1~3 ms) and lower the cost (lowering the cost from > $200/piece to <$50/piece).
Wind forces on an offloading tanker that is approaching a Floating Production and Storage Offloading (FPSO) vessel are influenced by so-called shielding or shadow effects, which are caused by the distorted wind fields in the wake of the FPSO. During the offloading operations, an offloading tanker approaching an FPSO will experience changing flow conditions that require adequate steering inputs for a safe and continuous approach to the FPSO.
One of the most effective ways to reduce energy consumption in buildings is to construct them with more advanced envelope systems. There appears to be a lack of study in this area for apartments in North America and this research project aims to fill that gap. The objective of this project is to provide a deeper understanding and recommend standards on optimal envelope systems for apartment buildings tailored to the Canadian climatic conditions.
The intern will assist in developing a component of a probability and statistical risk based methodology for completing quantitative risk assessments of building designs and a corresponding probabilistic failure based methodology on fire causation and spread. Data collected by Sereca Fire will be applied to construct more specific models, which can predict the frequency of occurrence of fire given the type of occupancy and construction. The second part of the project includes data collection and cleaning.
