Glass fiber reinforced concrete (GFRC) panels are a lightweight cladding panels primarily used as fascia panels in building structures. Concrete when reinforced with fibers is often presented as an environmental improvement on typical concrete. In the wake of the rapidly emerging climate change emergency and to help improve resiliency in our residential buildings, the National […]

Tens of thousands of Canadians living with a Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) suffer from debilitating neuropathic pain. This project, in partnership with Spinal Cord Injury Ontario (SCIO), will seek to understand and test the potential for mindfulness mediation, to decrease pain and increase quality of life. Over 36 months, Robert Buren (the intern), in collaboration […]

We are developing an automated monitoring system to optimize the frequency of septic tank pumps. Septic tanks are used in ~87% of rural communities across Canada; current best practice for maintenance pumping is neither effective nor efficient as it is based on time rather than use. A reliable monitoring system can reduce cost by minimizing […]

3D printing has become a cornerstone technology for prototyping products during product development. However, the process is too slow for even small production runs. Pantheon Design in Vancouver has set out to increase the speed of extrusion printing by a factor of 10. To date, they have achieved a five-fold increase in print speed compared […]

Transportation services, ranging from public buses to private logistics fleets, could benefit significant from the introduction of Rogers’ 5G wireless networks. This project has a primary objective to support UBC’s efforts to achieve its 2050 emissions reductions goals, with an emphasis on a reduction of GHG and air pollutant emissions from transportation services.

The research outlined in this project is intended to highlight the real world impact cryptocurrencies have on our climate, if there is any. It is meant to evaluate the carbon footprint released by crypto-mining as a whole, and against the benefit it provides to our economy. This evaluation will be used to determine whether any […]

Rapid of urban population and limited raw material and energy resources increase the demand for more sustainable structures. An initiative was taken by many governments, including Canada, to introduce more timber structures to the public buildings. This initiative can save a considerable amount of energy required to produce common construction materials such as concrete and […]

Hospitals use different warming techniques for surgery patients to prevent them from hypothermia, i.e., becoming cold during their operation. Many warming techniques are commonly available and used but studies on their holistic environmental impacts are lacking. The overall environmental impacts and economic costs of products or services can be assessed using life cycle assessment (LCA) […]

Precast concrete shear walls are an economical structural system for low, medium, and high-rise buildings. Precast concrete structural systems have various advantages, such as improved quality of construction, efficient use of materials, reduced construction time, and cost-efficiency. The concrete wall panels are typically one story in height and are connected horizontally and vertically to adjacent […]

How do warming temperatures affect local ski resorts and what can be expected for the future of alpine skiing in British Columbia? This study aims to determine how important natural snow and weather conditions are for customers at ski resorts in British Columbia and what this means under future snow conditions. By analyzing natural conditions, […]

This research aims to address one of the challenging problems in open science, i.e., how to reliably ensure that authors share all of the datasets, code, protocols, and any new lab materials associated with their articles. The solution will employ state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques to detect sentences where authors describe data collection or the […]

Energy storage technology is critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewable energy and should be designed to suit the cold environment in Canada. In collaboration with Atlas Power Technologies Inc., a B.C.-based clean technology company, Dr. Liu’s group will design and build an aqueous zinc-ion capacitor (AZIC) technology with high-power, intrinsic safety, […]