Innovative Projects Realized

Modeling of Pressurized Chemical Looping Combustion in a Novel Toroidal Fluidized Bed

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology provides a promising avenue to reduce carbon emissions. CCS works by capturing and storing carbon dioxide preventing it from contributing to climate change. Pressurized Chemical Looping Combustion (PCLC) is a promising next generation CCS technology that use a metal catalyst to react hydrocarbon fuels in an efficient way allowing for cheap and simple capture of carbon. PCLC has been shown at small scales to capture upwards of 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. This project will use computer modelling to help understand key parameters that influence the performance of PCLC. The modelling will focus on a unique reactor design to allow for better control of solids movement. A medium sized PCLC system will be built based on this work to provide a demonstration of this technology at increased scale. The results of this demonstration plant will provide confidence in PCLC for CCS in industrial applications.

A community-based ethnography on multiculturalism in practice in a Canadian context

The objective of this proposed research is to examine how multiculturalism is experienced and practised in community by women from different cultural backgrounds. Drawing on everyday life stories created by the study participants, we aim to obtain empirical knowledge about impacting factors that positively influence immigrant integration and resettlement experience. Such knowledge will contribute to the construction of effective multicultural communities. We will use an ethnographic approach to conducting research, including narrative life writing collection, interviewing, and ethnographic observation. The multiple sources of data will provide a firsthand account of the impact of growing diverse populations and of possible causes for social integration and/or exclusion. The findings of this study will contribute to making an important connection with on-the-ground realities experienced by community members and providing evidence for decision makers regarding effective resettlement and social integration services.

Comment vaincre l’isolement social des aînés en milieu rural et favoriser l’accessibilité aux ressources par le biais d’un projet d’impact collectif? Recherche-action, accompagnement et évaluation du déploiement du projet Culture aux aînés

Dans le contexte du vieillissement marqué de la population, exacerbé en milieu rural, la recherche proposée documentera, en partenariat avec le projet Culture aux aînés, les effets d’une réponse alternative pour contrer le sentiment de solitude, l’isolement et l’exclusion sociale des aînés au moyen des arts et de la culture. La recherche analysera les interventions directes de Cultures aux aînés, projet multisectoriel permettant aux aînés des MRC des Sources et du Val-Saint-François au Québec ainsi que des aînés anglophones de ces communautés, de se mettre en lien et d’activer des forces et des intérêts de manière ouverte et inclusive. L’utilisation d’un moyen atypique d’intervention, soit l’art et la médiation culturelle, en fait un projet d’une grande pertinence à suivre. Le financement offert par le Gouvernement du Canada au projet (Programme Nouveau Horizons pour les aînés) démontre la crédibilité des promoteurs et l’importance du sujet. Une recherche-action soutenant l’accompagnement et l’évaluation de l’impact collectif est alors très pertinente.

Exploration of Novel Fuels for Gas Turbine Applications

The internship for each student will be under the supervision of Gilles Bourque PhD, the

Combustion Research and Technology Team Leader. Mr Bourque has been working for the

past 12 years at RR Canada of which 10 in the Combustion department. The student will be

an integral part of his team and as such will also interact with key members of the team on a

daily basis. A usual week would start with a team meeting where members give: 1) a verbal

update of their progress, 2) when a significant chunk of work has been completed a short

presentation summarising the achievements, and 3) the planned work for the week is revised

and agreed with all members. This work environment is highly appreciated by the

undergraduate and graduate students as we welcome an increasing number of students

choosing RR Canada for their internship. Since 2005 we have taken onboard more than 150

students from Canadian universities.

Linking Forests and Cities: Wood Fuel Logistics and Carbon Performance

This study aims to produce a feasibility report on establishing a district energy system in Toronto, Ontario. The district energy system will be powered by wood chips sourced by a local, privately held forest and transported by rail to the proposed combined heat and power facility. Areas that will be examined in this study include transportation costs and logistics as well as carbon emissions throughout the supply chain. We hope that the outcome of this study will help create a path to revitalize Ontario’s forest industry.

Development of an Enhanced Ground Control Station Equipped with an Advanced Stand-Alone Virtual Reality Headset

The main purpose of this project is to develop an enhanced portable ground Control Station (GCS) equipped with an Advanced Stand-Alone Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display (ASVR-HMD). In the beginning, a Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) stand-alone Virtual Reality (VR) headset would be connected to the flight simulation tool. The VR HMD will be used to visualize basic flight simulation. Then, an onboard camera would be integrated to the aircraft provided by the partner organization. The VR HMD developed earlier will be used by pilots to accomplish actual flight testing of the proposed aircraft via real time video input enabling First-Person View (FPV) operation. Finally, the overall integration, improvement, expansion and testing will be accomplished. Herein, the main focus will be towards combining the view from actual flight test to simulated flight test by providing the necessary symbology and data for the pilot to better understand the aircraft performance and operations for validation.

Coupling the liquid pool and wellbore hydraulic module of the “Prediction and Optimization Software Package” – Part 3

In the last decade optimization is expanded in many applications from food production to sophisticated applications such as engine fuel efficiency. In the proposed package, it is tried to apply optimization techniques along with physics based analytical and semi-analytical methodologies to create a compelling framework which can help thermal-process based oil industry to reduce their GHG and also better evaluate their CAPEX. Many SAGD projects are overspent on their facilities due to under prediction or overprediction of their oil production expectations. this package will help operators to predict their expectations and improve their predictions as more inputs are provided such 4D seismic, temperature and pressure observation wells, production data, and geological characterization.

Low-cost Machine Type Communication User Equipments for LTE.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) devices are defined as the equipments which do not require a direct human interaction for communicating to each other. M2M networks are predicted to have a large end-user market in the near future with numerous potential applications, such as home automation, patient monitoring, transportation, and smart metering. Currently, the main bottleneck is to reduce the overall cost of these equipments in order to enable a practical implementation of densely-deployed M2M networks which can cover an area of interest and, for example, connect different regions of a city. The proposed research will be part of Sierra

Wireless’ ongoing activities to develop such low-cost machine-type communication devices compliant with the long-term evolution (LTE) communications standard.

Dual Crankshaft Actuation System for Robotic Legs

The aim of this project is optimize and experiment with a type of actuation for a robotic leg where all the motors are attached to the body and their powers transmitted to the joints of the leg witn a dual crankshaft mechanism. This mechanism is envisioned as a possible alternative for one of our walking machine.The intern will be in charge of implementing the kinematic, static, and possibly dynamic (if needed) equations modeling the mechanism. Then, simulations and optimizations will be conducted. If the results appear promising, a prototype will be manufactured and experimented with.

Additive Manufacturing of Reinforced-polymer Composites

Additive manufacturing, or three-dimensional (3D) printing, of composites is a grouping of different shaping processes that allows the fabrication of structures through robotic deposition of material by means of a computer model. This technology is a very promising avenue for the implementation of many mechanical and aerospace systems. The research team focuses on the development of advanced composite materials offering multiple functionalities (where multiple properties are desired for a given application) for additive manufacturing (e.g., FDM, SLA, solvant assisted, extrusion-based). The research team innovates with freeform, multi-material and multi-functional printing of complex mechanical/aerospace systems.

Payload Transport with Drones

The Mobile Robotics and Autonomous Systems Laboratory of Polytechnique Montréal is specialized in drone development and applications. The intern will join the team in charge of developing a payload transport system with drones. IN this research work we will develop a simulation environment, validate the different control strategies in the simulation environment and implement the controllers on the drones.

Development of novel therapeutics for multidrug-resistant bacterial pathogens by targeting indel-containing essential proteins

Multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial pathogens are ubiquitous in hospitals and community settings. New antibiotics against unexploited targets are urgently needed to better control such infections. The proposed research aims to identify novel, drug targets and therapeutics for antibiotic-resistant nosocomial pathogens, capitalizing on a proprietary indel-targeting approach that takes advantage of structural differences between homologous essential human and pathogen proteins. The nominee will help identify inhibitors for two of Indel Therapeutics’ microbial drug discovery programs through a number of biochemical and biological assays aimed at identifying the most potent and selective inhibitors for the development of potential antimicrobials for the treatment of multidrug-resistant pathogens. The participation of the intern in the Company’s drug discovery efforts will accelerate the Company’s milestones and increase its internal resources towards higher priority advanced projects. Longer term, the research will lead to the creation of novel classes of…TOBECONTINUED