Healthy and Sustainable Housing in Indigenous Communities

Healthy and sustainable housing is a critical social determinant of health and well-being. In Indigenous communities, decades of ineffective government housing and land policy have created abysmal, often culturally inappropriate housing conditions. Through partnership with First Nations, we will explore and uncover solutions to answer these questions: What if we could co-create Indigenous homes to […]

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Scaled Physical Modeling of Geomechanical Implications of Wormholes During CO2-Based CSI in CHOPS Reservoirs Part A: Centrifuge Testing of 3D Printed Specimens

Deliberate massive sand influx used to increase oil recovery from shallow heavy oil resources ultimately results in low oil recovery. This means 85-95% of oil would remain unrecovered during the co-production of oil and sand process, which is referred to as Cold Heavy Oil Production with Sand (CHOPS). In this project, we looked at the […]

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Use of nanoparticles, phase change materials, and antifreeze admixtures for cold weather concreting

In cold regions, freezing temperatures impede construction activities or put them on hold until warmer seasons, as concreting activities under such conditions are quite challenging. This leads to considerable socioeconomic losses. This research will advance the current knowledge on cold weather concreting, which is a critical issue for Canada and other cold regions. It will […]

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Prioritization and Optimization of the Sewer Flushing Program for Municipal Wastewater Collection Systems

The objective of the study is to develop an algorithm to streamline and automate the decision making process for implementing the municipal wastewater collection flushing program. Traditionally, a municipal flushing program, or pipe cleaning, is based on a time-cycle approach. This means that all sewer pipes in the network are treated the same, ignoring variables, […]

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Investigation of rut and moisture damage resistant additives for asphalt mixtures

The main goal of this research project is to reduce the rate of occurrence of these distresses by designing and developing improved asphalt binder and asphalt mixtures appropriate for St. John’s environmental and loading conditions. The project will develop recommendations on specifications for asphalt binders, modifiers and asphalt mixtures to enhance the rutting and moisture […]

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Oilsands Mine – Pit wall design optimization

Two primary objectives of this undertaking are (1) to determine whether ore recovery along pit walls can be increased by replacing and/or augmenting current pit wall stability assessments involving two-dimensional static methods with three-dimensional deformation analyses and (2) to differentiate pit wall deformations associated with stress relaxation from those associated with failure. Three-dimensional deformation analyses […]

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Reliability Analysis for Bridges Under Autonomous Truck Platooning Loads

The freight trucking industry is in a transformational phase by adopting smart mobility options to reduce operational costs and minimize carbon foot print. The autonomous truck platooning is a major step in this regard and the goal of this research project is to assess the readiness of the bridges for the peculiar loading conditions due […]

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Soil Stabilization with DFI

Over the years, numerous techniques and additives have been employed to increase soil strength and stability – from filling a bog with stones or other fill to compacting the soil with heavy machinery or mixing soil with cement or lime and allowing the resulting mix to harden. Duraflex Solutions Ltd has a new, environmentally-friendly product […]

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Characterizing Geotechnical and Hydraulic Properties of a Novel Nano-Graphene-Based Adsorbent (Grafta®) used in Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRBs), using Experimental Tests and Numerical Analysis

Permeable Reactive Barrier (PRB) is an in situ permeable treatment zone designed to capture and remediate a contaminant plume. PRBs have become important components among the various technologies available to remediate groundwater contamination and are now a standard in the remediation industry. Grafta®; an in-house patented technology provided by Comnipex is a novel material that […]

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Development of innovative approaches for the extraction and recovery of resources from gold-bearing materials

This project would address basic unanswered questions about how the application of environmentally benign process (i.e., biohydrometallurgy) on mine ores and tailings can leach and extract base and, precious that are essential for today’s “smarter” technologies. Bioprocessing methods for bio-extraction and bio-recovery of elements offer a new potential sustainable alternative compared to chemical conventional approaches. […]

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