Projets novateurs réalisés

Application of a Surface Fouling Sensor for Predictive Maintenance of a Brazed Plate Heat Exchanger System

Heat exchangers, used in building heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to transfer heat from hot to cold fluids, are designed to operate under ideal conditions. However, in practice operating conditions may vary with ambient temperature or humidity. HVAC system efficiency can be improved significantly if fluid flow rates are adjusted in response to such changes. Armstrong Fluid Technology is a Canadian firm that has developed control systems to adjust the flow through building heat exchangers to maximize their efficiency. This project is being undertaken to optimize a heat exchanger system. The feedback control system and predictive maintenance module will reduce the energy required for operating an HVAC system by approximately 30% and have a significant impact on Canada’s energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.

Effective Algorithms in Polyhedral Geometry and Symbolic Analysis

The proposed research projects will expand the scope of computer algebra systems (CAS) into two areas where much remains to be done: symbolic analysis and polyhedral geometry. One of the proposed research projects will also strengthen CAS in one of their well-established territory, namely symbolic integration. These themes will support applications such as the analysis, transformation and scheduling of computer programs as well as the computation of limits of families of geometrical objects (e.g. tangent cones) algebraic geometry. This proposal capitalizes on the research conducted by academic partners at the University of Western Ontario in order to strengthen and extend the technology of their industrial partner, Maplesoft, the developers of Maple, one of the leading CAS world-wide

Green logistics planning for hydrogen fuel network: a life cycle analysis approach

The energy sector accounts for 75% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By adopting a low-carbon or clean fuel alternative, we can reduce GHG emissions to a great extent. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been identified as a major opportunity to reduce GHG emissions compared to fossil fuels, yet the distribution of hydrogen remains a challenge due to multiple processes involved in the distribution and production of green hydrogen from methanol, Azolla Hydrogen is an organization that accelerates the adoption of clean fuels and has technology that uses methanol as the hydrogen carrier which generates hydrogen, on-demand, at the local level, circumventing many of the logistical challenges. Thus, an optimal resource planning by analyzing the life-cycle inputs, outputs, and distribution models to provide recommendations for Azolla to support their hydrogen fueling stations in Alberta, and/or California can create a successful industrial example that strides towards a more sustainable, circular carbon economy.

ESG Events Clustering using Natural Language Processing

The integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors into investment decisions has accelerated in the last few years. In fact, Bank of America estimates a $20 trillion of asset growth in ESG funds over the next two decades. Evaluating ESG related events of a company is an important task to assess company ESG risk. For public companies, important changes should be covered by the media and possibly by several news. These news need to be grouped under the same ESG event before analysis. Up to now, human analysts have carried out this task manually, a time expensive task and source of possible error due to a large number of text data. The goal of this research is to use natural language processing (NLP) to ensure uniformity across work done by different analysts and analyze the possibility to automate the task in order to save time for future news grouping.

Investigating Crop and Soil Properties using Remote Sensing Big Data for Supporting Precision Agriculture

The Canadian agricultural sector is facing a wide range of challenges that include depleting natural resources (e.g., water), environmental pollution (e.g., fertilizers), and climate change. Precision agriculture is a method of farming that uses technologies to monitor soil and crop status and support timely and variable-rate farming practices. It is thus a promising approach to address challenges faced by the agricultural sector. Remote sensing (e.g., drone- and satellite-based imaging) is an essential technology in precision agriculture, which is capable of identifying within-field soil and crop variability and detecting crop stresses (e.g., water and nutrient shortages), providing critical information to perform site-specific management. In this project, interns will utilize cutting-edge remote sensing techniques and innovative models for investigating soil and crop properties. The partner organizations will be able to use the research results for precision agriculture and improve the efficiency and environmental sustainability of farming practices.

Simulating CANDU 6 Core ConfigurationsOperating on the Thorium Fuel Cycle

OVERVIEW MISSING

The research goal of this internship is to develop various configurations of the CANDU 6™ reactor core fuelled with thorium to achieve a conversion ratio of at least one, (i.e. the reactor produces as much fissile material as it consumes). These cores should have equivalent power outputs as the baseline reactor, but achieve higher average discharge burnup. The utilization of thorium allows the exploitation of a currently unused energy source and more efficient usage of uranium fuel. Secondary benefits include the reduction of the workload of the fuelling machines and the demonstration of the robustness of the CANDU design.

Research and Development in Helical Steel Pile Heat Exchangers

Helical steel piles are commonly used structural elements that anchor building foundations deep in the soil. Recently, it has been demonstrated that they can be used as ground heat exchangers with ground source heat pumps (GSHPs). These dual use geo-piles (structural and thermal) have the potential to significantly reduce GSHP installation costs, leading to greater adoption of sustainable energy technology. A potential application of geo-pile heat exchangers has been identified in the remote Canadian North. Many building foundations have been weakened due to thawing permafrost associated with climate change. Geo-piles may have the potential to provide sustainable heating to buildings in northern communities, while simultaneously drawing heat out of the ground, helping to delay or remediate melting permafrost destabilization. This research seeks a detailed understanding of the operational principles and optimization methods of geo-piles and to evaluate their potential for combined heating and ground stabilization in northern Canadian regions.

Economic Benefit of Recreation in Manitoba – A provincial capacity building project

In this project, two students from the Master of Arts in Applied Economics program will calculate the economic value and impact of the recreation sector in Manitoba. Their report will provide an evidence base from which Recreation Manitoba and its clients can decide on recreation initiatives with the highest economic return on investment. This information can in turn be used in Recreation Manitoba’s funding proposals for public and private granting bodies. To the extent that the economic benefits of recreation are high in Manitoba, and increased funding is forthcoming for the sector, this project may spur increased economic development and well-being in Manitoba.

Co-designing Strategies to Scale Natural Climate Solutions in Canada’s Agriculture Sector

The adoption of natural climate solutions by farmers, such as cover cropping, avoiding grassland conversion, and improving nutrient use efficiency contributes to climate change mitigation, while also producing environmental and societal co-benefits. Scaling natural climate solutions in agriculture is increasingly being explored as a critical component in achieving net-zero targets. Recently, Nature United published a landmark study that finds the suite of natural climate solutions in agriculture has the potential to cut Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by 37.4 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. Now, the challenge before us is to explore how to foster an enabling environment in Canada that effectively encourages farmers to adopt natural climate solutions to reach the climate change mitigation potential outlined in Nature United’s study. While navigating this challenge, the intern will work with Nature United to develop a strategy to scale natural climate solutions adoption in Canadian agriculture

Healing and symbolism in Montaigne

Ce projet de recherche concerne le philosophe Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) et les indications qu’il fournit dans son oeuvre
pour traiter, ou du moins apaiser, les soi-disant « maladies de l’âme ». Par une interprétation symbolique de ses écrits, nous
porterons notre attention sur les éléments à caractère curatif, afin de trouver compréhension et outils pour faire face aux maux qui
assaillent la psyché humaine. Le mouvement du texte sera construit sur la base de trois essais principaux de Montaigne, à savoir,
‘De la Solitude’, ‘Que le Goust des Biens et des Maux Depend en Bonne Partie de l’Opinion que Nous en Avons’ et ‘De la
Diversion’. La notion la plus originale est peut-être c’est que chaque essai sera lié à une figure symbolique spécifique, ce qui
enrichira le cadre philosophique et interprétatif dans son ensemble.

Supply Chain Research for Companion and Class I Medical Devices

Research how the supply chain for Class I Medical Devices works, including distributor relations, especially for small companies with a narrow product line, and prospect the Medical Device market focusing on Class I and Class II Medical devices companies willing to file an MDEL application. By the end of the project, DECAP would have selected the distribution channel according to its operation and would decide whether expand its operation by creating a new business division for consulting services around the Health Canada licensing process.

Developing Travel Behaviour Models, and Transportation and Emissions Simulation Tools for a Small Canadian Municipality

This research project fills the critical gap in data collection, and building behavioural and simulation models to assist in developing sustainable land use and transportation policy-making for a smaller/rural community- i.e. City of West Kelowna (Co WK). Specifically, the interns will contribute by developing tmftic ;md emissions simulation models to test the impacts of revitalizing the Downtown for alternative neighbourhood-level scenarios such as a mix of housing types for a range of ages and income levels in the Downtown area, and corridor-level scenarios such as adding bike lanes and transit slops, and changing signal timing such as transit signal priority. In one hand, macrosimulation models will be
developed to assess the neighbourhood-level impacts for changes in the Downtown area; on the other hand, microsimulation models will be developed to evaluate the corridor-level impacts for changes along the Old Okanagan Highway. Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and criteria air contaminants such as CO, NOx, PM2 s, and PM 10 will be quantified for alternative fuel types such as diesel and electric, and different vehicle types such as private car and transit.