Factors that Encourage and Impede Missing Middle housing on Vancouver Island

Missing Middle Housing (MMH) encompasses several moderate density housing types which offer similar features to a single detached home, while reducing costs to the buyer, reducing the environmental footprint and reducing the amount of land used. Although many Municipalities on Vancouver Island are beginning to encourage MMH, there are still relatively few of these homes […]

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Visualizing complex building analysis data to increase comprehension of public audience

This research study focuses on the communication and transmission of technical and industrial analytic data, developed by our research partner, ioAirFlow. Because the current recipients of ioAirFlow data reports are not always data- or engineering-trained professionals, complex data is not often understood or acted upon. This research internship focuses on ways in which to develop […]

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Low Temperature Stabilization and Bulk Processing Techniques for the Production of Lower-Cost Asphaltene Based Short Carbon Fibres

NORAM Engineering and Constructors Ltd. (NORAM) has developed a bench-scale process capable of producing low strength fibres from Alberta oil sands asphaltenes (AOA). The objective of the proposed collaborative research between NORAM and UBC is to broaden the application space of AOA by improving the structural and functional properties of AOA-CF through polymer blend and […]

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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 […]

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Pre-concentration of Mount Polley copper ore

A previous feasibility study performed at UBC on the Mount Polly samples showed that dense media separation gave copper recoveries of 95.8% at a specific gravity of 2.9. The purpose of this research project is to confirm the applicability of dense media separation for Mount Polley ore pre-concentration. A lab test will be performed as […]

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A Toolkit for Affordability Driven Home Energy Efficiency Retrofits Through Local Improvement Charge Programs

Climate change will cause increasing temperature fluctuations and longer heat waves. This will make home cooling essential, but adding and using cooling can be too expensive for low-income homeowners, including seniors. Incentive programs exist to help people make energy-efficient retrofits to their homes, but they can increase housing costs. This does not work for many […]

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Coastal Convection Modeling

Global warming is a major issue faced by society nowadays and to fight it we need to be able to make global climate projections with less uncertainty. Despite numerous progresses in theoretical and computational modelling, there are still climatic phenomena that remain partially unresolved because of the coarseness of the grid resolutions used in global […]

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Colorimetric test strips for oil/fuel/ethanol mixtures

There is a need for customers to use a simple test method to determine if the fuel blends they are using are of the proper composition for fuel efficiency, environment- friendliness and engine cylinder compatibility. But it is difficult to determine the composition of oil/fuel/ethanol mixtures without detailed and expensive chemical analysis. It is because […]

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The role of automobility engagement in consumer response to fully automated vehicles

This project’s objective is to help improve knowledge regarding consumer perspectives of conventional car mobility and transport innovations in Canada, with particular focus on fully automated vehicles (FAVs), or vehicles that can drive themselves without requiring a driver to be paying attention. Innovations can alter the transport sector’s environmental sustainability – for example, electric vehicles […]

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Development of a water balance model for assessing and improving the site water management practices at the Goderich Salt Mine

Compass Minerals’ Goderich salt mine is the largest underground salt mine in the world. The mine is located 1,800 feet under Lake Huron, Ontario, producing rock salt for winter deicing and for making plastics, detergents, disinfectants and other important products. Fresh water is withdrawn from the municipal water supplies and used for the surface and […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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