Prediction and Mitigation of Drillstring Vibration

An oil well drillstring is a slender slru(.;ture whidl vibrales in 3 major coupleu moues. Unwnlrolkd vibration of the drillstring interferes with the drilling procedure. Tool and bit failure, improper borehole quality and lower penetration rates are examples of the side effects of unwanted vibration of the drillstring. Prior research by others has attempted to […]

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Side-Stream Nitrogen Treatment using a Membrane Aerated Biofilm Bioreactor (MABR) System: A Pilot Scale Demonstration

Municipal wastewater contains excessive nutrients, which when discharged without sufficient treatment can cause eutrophication in the receiving water bodies. Digested sludge liquor, the produce water generated from the treatment of sludge that is produced from municipal wastewater treatment plant contains high concentrations of ammonia that is toxic to aquatic biota and requires further treatment. Newer […]

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Determination of emerging contaminants-loaded on sludge-based activated carbon: chemical leachability and stability

Sewage sludge wastes have been treated by diverse techniques to obtain sludge-based activated carbon (SBAC). These materials show excellent properties as sorbents of, e.g., organic pollutants, heavy metals, and nitrogen/phosphorous-based nutrients. In a previous research, the loading of emerging contaminants on SBAC has been achieved. As an extension of this work, we propose to study […]

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Design and development of techniques to characterize optical, mechanical and chemical properties of metallic and semiconductor thin films with applications in MEMS structures and their packaging

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are complex systems with sizes in the range of few microns (human hair has thickness of 150-200 microns) which have both mechanical and electronic components. MEMS technology has entered in many industries such as optical technology, point of care diagnostics, telecommunications, automotive, and military. Today, there are hundreds of MEMS devices, e.g. […]

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Modeling the risk of breakage of beaver dams

Municipalities in Quebec lack tools to effectively anticipate and manage the consequences of beaver dam outburst flooding. When beaver dams fail the resulting flooding can pose a major threat to public safety and public and private infrastructure. A research project lead by Dr. Jan Franssen in partership with OBV RPNS and its Municipal partners is […]

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Investigation of Innovative Methods, Tools and Processes on BC Housing’s First IPD Project

In this unique research project, the researchers will document and analyze the collaborative processes and technologies in a housing project, which follows a formal Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach. IPD is an emerging procurement method in the construction industry that engages all major stakeholders from the beginning of the construction project. However, there is still […]

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Analysis and Prototype Development of a Drive System and Novel Control Algorithm for Direct Drive Brushless Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors

Brushless permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSMs) are widely used in many applications including automations, instrumentation, propulsion, vehicular systems, etc. This project is focused on research and development of a modified drive system and novel control algorithms for PMSMs that could improve efficiency and torque performance compared to conventional methods. Collaboration with the University of British […]

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Dynamic Model for Lead Cable of Inconel Self-Powered NeutronDetectors

CANDU reactors use a large number of self-powered, in-core flux detectors (ICFDs) for their reactor regulating system (RRS) and their two shutdown systems (SDS-1 and SDS-2). Dynamic characteristics of ICFDs and lead cables are very important to reactor control and safety. Although, to date, several studies have modeled dynamic characteristics of ICFDs and lead cables, […]

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Intelligent Cyber-Physical Situational Awareness for Smart Infrastructures

The availability of big data in smart infrastructures have become a strategical asset for operators to understand the situation of the infrastructure and monitor potential threats. However, most of the data still have not circulated beyond traditional corporation and technological boundaries, which have limited the visibility that could have been provided by the abundant data. […]

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Self-Adaptive Penetration Tests with Deep-Reinforced Intelligent Agents

Penetration testing is a key security tactic, where defenders thinks like an attacker to predict the latter’s actions and develop effective defense. However, for large-scale cyber-physical infrastructures like the smart grid, traditional penetration tests on individual devices or networks are insufficient to exhaust all potential exploits or to reveal infrastructure-level vulnerabilities invisible to the local […]

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Data driven energy efficient base station sleep control for 5G systems

The objective of this project is to develop a software system which can optimally control the base station sleep states in 5G networks to save energy. The 5G wireless networks are required to be green and yield very low carbon dioxide emissions. Compared with that of 4G wireless networks, the power efficiency of 5G is […]

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Transparent and Trustworthy Deep Feature Learning for Cyber-Physical System Security

The latest artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have effectively leveraged the wealth of data from cyber-physical systems (CPSs) to automate intelligent decisions. However, for safety-critical CPS like smart grids and smart cities, the conversion of massive data into actionable information by the AI must be not only effective but also reliable. To this end, this project […]

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