Canada Excellence Research Chair: Next Generation Communication Technologies
$8,000,000
Octavia Dobre
Canada Research Chair: Tier 1 – Ubiquitous Connectivity
$1,400,000
Lesley James and Kim Welford with partners Government of Newfoundland and Labrador: Offshore NL CO2
Storage Potential
$995,680
Helen Zhang with partners
Natural Resources Canada: Development and Evaluation of Next-Generation Dispersants for Application in Canadian Freshwater and Estuarine Environments
$800,000
Weimin Huang with partners C-Core and Solace power
Canadian Space Agency: Killick-2 – A CubeSat for Ocean Monitoring in Support of Climate Change Adaptation
$350,000
Front page caption: Researchers from the Radar Remote Sensing Laboratory, in front of the anechoic chamber.
Message from the Dean & Associate Dean, Research
Departmental Research Highlights
Our Faculty
Memorial’s First Ever CERC: Dr. Trung Duong
Research Stories
Facility Spotlight: Intelligent Systems Lab
Annual Research Day
Industry Engagement Day
Looking Back: Dr. Cecilia Moloney
A Windy Outlook: Dr. Kevin Pope
Awards and Service By
Message from the Dean
Octavia A. Dobre
PhD, PEng, FIEEE, FEIC, FCAE
Interim Dean, Professor, and Tier-1 Canada Research Chair
This is an exciting time for Engineering research! As Interim Dean, I am delighted to see the many innovative projects in which our faculty is involved.
This year, we successfully secured the first Canada Excellence Research Chair at Memorial, and our faculty obtained over $12.4M in research support from federal, regional and provincial funding agencies, as well as industry.
Faculty and their trainees published over 420 peer-reviewed papers, which outstandingly contribute to the body of knowledge and technology advancement. Our exceptional colleagues have been acknowledged through various distinctions and awards, such as Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Fellow of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering, and best paper awards. Ten have been recognized as World’s Top 2% Scientists in their respective fields, as compiled by Stanford University. The work and creativity of our students have also been endorsed through paper and presentation awards at conferences, as well as fellowships like the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship.
We organized another successful Industry Engagement Day, where over 100 members of industry and government met with researchers at Memorial to discuss the latest technology trends and challenges, and establish partnerships to jointly find solutions. Further, we sponsored the Annual Research Poster Day, where over 50 graduate students highlighted their research results.
In the following pages, you will read about the research accomplishments of our faculty and their trainees. This is only a glimpse of the impactful research conducted in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. We are proud of our people’s achievements and hope that you will enjoy reading this report.
If you are interested in a particular area of research, our faculty will be more than happy to meet and discuss with you. We welcome new partnerships and collaborations with academic colleagues and industry.
Octavia A. Dobre
Message from the Associate Dean, Research
Rocky S. Taylor, PhD, P.Eng, MBA Acting Associate Dean, Research and Associate Professor
This year we have much to celebrate in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science! Researchers from our civil, electrical and computer, mechanical, ocean and naval architectural, and process engineering departments have accomplished much in 2024. As highlighted in this year’s report, our researchers continue to excel and drive highly impactful innovations in many vital areas of our society. These include energy, ocean technology, information and communication technology, harsh environments and sustainable infrastructure, as well as other emerging sectors.
Our researchers continue to excel and drive highly impactful innovations in many vital areas of our society.
— Rocky S. Taylor
In addition to recognizing the continued growth of our partnerships with industry, government and Indigenous partners, our faculty celebrates the excellence of our researchers, including our first Canada Excellence Research Chair, Dr. Trung Duong! In addition, ten of our colleagues were recognized by Stanford University as the World’s Top 2% Scientists in their fields. Our faculty members’ commitment to excellence in research and in the training of highly qualified personnel is reflected in the more than $12.4M in new funding secured and the 420 peer-reviewed articles published this past year.
The 2024 Research Report highlights examples of faculty and student contributions across many fields. This includes Dr. Assem Hassan’s work on concrete quality and performance, Dr. Bipul Hawlader’s research on geotechnical engineering and ground deformation, and Dr. Lorenzo Moro’s work on underwater radiated noise. Other topics, such as research on carbon capture, utilization and storage led by Dr. Sohrab Zendehboudi, research on predictive control for autonomous systems led by Dr. Syed Imtiaz and Dr. Weimin Huang’s work on remote sensing and antenna design are also featured. Additionally, research on anti-corrosion and anti-icing coatings led by Dr. Xili Duan and Dr. Oscar De Silva’s Intelligent Systems Lab research are highlighted.
We hope you enjoy reading about some of our faculty’s accomplishments as much as we enjoy sharing these exciting developments! Please feel free to contact the Engineering Research Office (ERO) if you would like to learn more or explore potential avenues for partnering to help you address your engineering challenges!
Rocky S. Taylor
Departmental Research Highlights
Civil Engineering
Lakshman Galagedara and Joseph Daraio with partner Atlantic Salmon Federation
Mitacs Accelerate: Combined use of Watershed and Morphodynamic Modelling to aid in the Conservation of Wild Atlantic Salmon
Hodjat Shiri and Masoud Mahdianpari with partner Samen Data
Mitacs Accelerate: Provision of Real Time In-sights for Decision Making in Construction Management using Computer Vision and Machine Learning Algorithms
Bing Chen
Northern Contaminants Program: Understanding of Distribution and Sources of PBDEs in the North and East of Great Slave Lake and Coastal Regions
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mohammad Al Janaideh and Lihong Zhang
NSERC Research Tools and Instruments Grant: A Dual-Arm Wafer Robot Handler for Precision Mechatronics and MEMS Characterizations
Jonathan Anderson, with partner Metacrust Services Ltd
Mitacs Accelerate: ML Powered Behavioral Reports in Online Proctoring
Cheng Li, with partner École de technologie supérieure
Department of National Defence: Context-Aware and Robust Architectures for Defence and Security Operations
Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
George Mann
NSERC Discovery Grant: Long Range Navigation and Control of Micro-Aerial Vehicles in Complex Environments
Kevin Pope, with partners Global Maritime Ltd and Mitacs
NSERC Alliance: A Robust Framework for Frequency Domain Analysis of Floating Wind Turbines Fully Integrated with Mooring Analysis
Liam Morrisey
NSERC Discovery Grant: Studying the Interaction of Solar Wind Plasma with Exposed Minerals and Materials
Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering
Heather Peng, Mitacs
Business Strategy Internship: CFD analysis for onboard anemometer bias
Bruce Quinton
National Research Council: Developing Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Tools for Modelling of Hydroelastic Structure and Waves (and rigid ice floes) Interactions for Harsh Environment Applications
Brian Veitch
National Research Council: Predictive Ship Performance for Green Ship Technologies in Harsh Environments
Process Engineering
Sohrab Zendehboudi
Natural Resources Canada: Experimental and Modeling Studies to Assess Ex-Situ CO2 Storage in Southern Ontario Aquifers
Yahui Zhang
NSERC Discovery Grant: Recovery or Removal of Heavy Metals from Aqueous Systems Using Resins with Selective Functional Groups for Sustainable Metal Production and Environmental Protection
Syed Imtiaz and Salim Ahmed with partners Beyond Energy and Mitacs
NSERC Alliance: Advanced Control Solution for Managed Pressure Drilling System
Our Faculty
Administration
Interim Dean
Dobre, O.A.
PhD, P.Eng., FEIC, FIEEE, FCAE; Professor, Research Chair in Ubiquitous Connectivity, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Associate Dean (Graduate Studies) Chen, B.
PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE, FEIC, FCAE, MRSC; Professor, Civil Engineering
Interim Associate Dean (Research) Taylor, R.S.
PhD, P.Eng., MBA; Associate Professor, Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies) Ahmed, S.
PhD, P.Eng.; Associate Professor, Process Engineering
Director, First Year Engineering Peng, H.
PhD, P.Eng.; Associate Professor, Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering
Director, Ocean Engineering Research Centre Molyneux, D.
PhD, P.Eng.; Associate Professor, Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering
Director, Centre for Artificial Intelligence Czarnuch, S.M.
PhD, P.Eng.; Associate professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director, Office of Industrial Outreach Bruneau, S.E.
PhD, P.Eng.; Associate Professor, Civil Engineering
Senior Administrative Officer
Lewis, S.
BBA, B.Ed, MER
Civil Engineering
Department Head
Hawlader, B.P.
PhD, P.Eng.; Professor
Specialization: Finite element modelling; soil-structure interaction; geotechnical engineering
Deputy Head Dhar, A.S.
PhD, P.Eng.; Professor Specialization: Geotechnical engineering; pipe testing; numerical modelling
Professors Chen, B.
PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE, FEIC, MRSC, MEASA, UArctic Research Chair in Marine and Coastal Environmental Engineering
Specialization: Marine & inland oil/HNS spill response; emerging contaminants under climate change; water & wastewater treatment and reuse
Hassan, A.A.A.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Development; durability; corrosion and service life prediction of concrete structures
Zhang, B.
PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE, FEIC, Canada
Research Chair in Coastal Environmental Engineering
Specialization: Research mobilization; entrepreneurship; numerical methods
Bruneau, S.E.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Arctic ships and structures; energy; marine structural design and analysis
Hussein, A.
PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE
Specialization: Advanced composite materials as reinforcement for concrete structures; testing of concrete under generalized stress conditions; constitutive modelling of concrete structures
Daraio, J.
PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE
Specialization: Climate change adaption
Shiri, H.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Offshore foundations and geotechnique; subsea pipelines and risers; offshore and subsea installation
Specialization: Arctic ships and structures; marine structural design and analysis; materials and mechanics; offshore and marine safety; safety and risk; simulation; structures and materials
Qiu, W.
PhD, P.Eng., FSNAME, FRINA, FCAE
Specialization: Ship and offshore hydrodynamics; wave and body interaction; seakeeping; marine propulsion; CFD for marine applications
Veitch, B.J.
Dr.Tech., P.Eng., FRINA, FSNAME, FCAE
Specialization: Offshore and marine safety
Associate Professors Molyneux, D.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Ocean engineering; marine safety
Peng, H.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Marine and ship hydrodynamics; development and application of marine hydrodynamics to ship and offshore structure design
Walker, D.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Ship performance; small craft performance
Specialization: Process control; fault detection and diagnosis; nonlinear model predictive control; machine learning
Deputy Head
James, L.A.
PhD, P.Eng.; Professor
Specialization: Enhanced oil recovery; carbon capture utilization and storage; drilling data analytics
Ahmed, S.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Process safety and control; alarm system design; system identification
Professors Butt, S.D.
PhD, P.Eng., University Research Professor
Specialization: Petroleum and mining engineering; drilling and geomechanics engineering
Hawboldt, K.A.
PhD, P.Eng., University Research Professor
Specialization Chemical engineering; bioprocessing
Zendehboudi, S.
PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Energy and environment; transport phenomena; carbon management, and reservoir analysis
Zhang, Y. PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Chemical and process engineering
Associate Professors Zhang, Y. PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Mineral processing; extractive metallurgy; materials chemistry
Assistant Professor Lin, C PhD
Specialization: Mine geomechanics; field stress estimation; ground stability control
Teaching Associate Professors Aborig, A. PhD
Specialization: Reservoir engineering; enhanced oil recovery; well logging and formation evaluation
Teaching Assistant Professor Mamudu, A Phd
Lecturer Azargohar, R. PhD, P.Eng.
Specialization: Chemical engineering and bioprocessing
Our exceptional colleagues have been acknowledged through various distinctions and awards.
— Octavia A. Dobre, Interim Dean
Wireless without limit
What it means to be Memorial’s first Canada Excellence Research Chair in next generation communication technologies
By Dr. Trung Q. Duong
I would like to introduce myself. My name is Trung Q. Duong and I have accepted a position as Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in next generation communication technologies. It is a privilege to be invited by Memorial to come to North America to continue my work on wireless communications which I believe will have an impact on Canada’s technological future.
My last position at Queen’s University Belfast allowed me to work on 5G communications-assisted disaster scenarios. If a storm knocks out cellular networks and Wifi, we need to ensure aid reaches the areas that need it and that those affected can communicate with loved ones.
People have asked me what brought me to the field of wireless communications. I grew up in Hoi An in Vietnam, a magnificent beautiful place that is always one step away from being wiped out by a tropical storm. When a storm was forecast and schools shut down, the children in Hoi An used to actually use tin cans and string to communicate with one another. I think this was the first time it dawned on me that anybody could invent ways of communicating and that field has intrigued me ever since.
Once I completed my PhD in telecommunications systems at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden in 2012, I joined Queen’s University Belfast in the United Kingdom. That’s where my career really took off; even though I was fresh out of my PhD, I began teaching and began a five-year Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship to study high energy-efficiency and secure 5G networks.
In 2017, I was humbled to receive the Newton Prize for my research on a durable, 5G wireless communication system to use during natural disasters. My next Chair nomination was for five years with the Royal Academy of Engineering to go one step beyond into the realm of 6G.
It is this technology that I will continue to investigate as Memorial’s first ever Canada Excellence Research Chair in next generation communication technologies. The world is already moving towards 6G, a wireless network almost beyond the imagination of some. The metaverse and Internet of Things (IoT) feature virtual and augmented realities and the number of applications that will come on stream in the next decade is mind-boggling. In fact, the number of applications threatens to bring down the entire platform. That’s what my work will entail; making sure that 6G networks will be reliable and instantaneous despite the immense number of things that will pass through it.
One of my past research interests was to see how 6G can be used in industrial automation and how to reconfigure factories to make them wireless, saving a lot of time and energy moving from one product to another.
In my new round of communications research, I hope to work to ensure 6G networks can keep up with the huge number of wireless devices connected
to them but also do so without time delay. I like to think of the research as wireless without limit connectivity that can provide high quality-of-service targets for a massive number of connected devices. My research program will create a prompt response to sustainable digital infrastructure through the creation of sustainable next-generation communications technologies which will have potential impact on Canada’s science, technology and innovation priority research areas including healthcare, smart cities, rural areas, smart agriculture, and climate resilience.
Using an interdisciplinary approach, my research program will build a world-leading research and education initiative in 6G communications at Memorial. Next generation communication technologies, such as 6G, have the potential to change how our world is connected.
I think that being able to connect people with technology will greatly improve our delivery of healthcare; it will inform us on how to move forward with smart agriculture and climate change.
I am excited by the idea of collaborating with the booming local tech industry.
What I hope to achieve in my role as Chair is to bring Memorial to a whole new level in the field of communications technology. Don’t get me wrong; we already had amazing faculty and student researchers here before I came along. Dr. Octavia Dobre, for example, has been working on spectral efficiency, transmission latency and full-duplex transmission for several years and making great strides. But when we put our heads together, we can help each other and consolidate our expertise to tackle some of the biggest communications challenges on the planet.
CERC program
Launched in 2008, Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) is an eight-year award valued at $1 million each year. The CERC program, supported by the Government of Canada, attracts the highest calibre of experts to lead breakthroughs in science, technology and innovation.
Dr. Trung Duong
Dr. Trung Duong received his PhD in telecommunications systems from Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, in 2012. In 2013, he joined Queen’s University Belfast, U.K., where he is an adjunct professor and a chair professor in telecommunications.
He has received esteemed awards, including being named a Royal Academy of Engineering research chair and a Royal Academy of Engineering research fellow. He is a world-renowned expert in wireless communications with more than 500 publications in this area.
In 2017, Dr. Duong received the Newton Prize – the most prestigious research award from the U.K. government to recognize research that promotes economic development and social welfare in developing countries – for his research on maintaining communications under hostile conditions. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Concrete whisperer
Cracked concrete — who ya gonna call?
Memorial researcher works on the development and testing of advanced concrete mixtures.
Dr. Assem Hassan loves concrete. In fact, he loves it so much, he’s been experimenting to improve its quality and performance for more than thirteen years at Memorial University. He is so attuned to concrete that he listens to it, and when it talks to him, he can understand what it is telling him.
Acoustic emissions
“The most exciting part of my concrete research is structural health monitoring based on acoustic emissions,” says the full professor and professional engineer. What this means is that Dr. Hassan uses sensors to know whether a concrete structure is developing cracks and becoming unstable.
By attaching several small metal acoustic sensors to a concrete structure, Dr. Hassan can sit back in the comfort of his office and monitor the structure’s health because as microcracks emerge, they emit energy, creating elastic waves which the small acoustic emissions sensors can
Dr. Hassan with his students pouring full-scale reinforced concrete beams
RESEARCH STORY: DR. ASSEM HASSAN
detect, providing an early warning to address issues before significant failures occur.
“Acoustic emissions serve as a passive method for monitoring structural health, enabling the detection and pinpointing of possible damage that the eye can’t necessarily see and the human ear won’t necessarily hear,” says Dr. Hassan. “Once we filter out surrounding sounds of things like wind or trucks passing over a bridge, for example, then we can identify the microcrack and its location in the concrete. This significantly lowers maintenance expenses for civil structures by removing the necessity for regular site visits, especially in remote or inaccessible locations.”
And because cracks in concrete can be life-threatening in large structures such as dams and offshore drilling platforms, Dr. Hassan experiments with unique ways to enhance concrete production and reduce failure.
“We have so many ideas,” says Dr. Hassan. The we refers to Dr. Hassan’s team of over thirty-five PhD, master’s, postdoctoral, and research associate students that he has supervised/co-supervised in his concrete research at Memorial. Dr. Hassan and his students conduct full-scale tests in both the concrete and structures labs adding by-products to the concrete mixture, including waste materials. His research has resulted in more than 150 journal articles and conference papers, not to mention thousands of citations. One of the most exciting additives in Dr. Hassan’s research is discarded rubber tires that are shredded into small pieces.
Recycling rubber tires
“The disposal of non-biodegradable discarded tires is a significant environmental concern in Newfoundland and Labrador and globally,” says Dr. Hassan. “Burning discarded tires emits toxic fumes, leading to air pollution and potential soil and water contamination; and long-term storage of waste tires in landfills can result in health issues, as the tires become breeding grounds for mosquitoes and pests, consequently contributing to the spread of diseases.”
So, Dr. Hassan’s idea of using recycled shredded tire rubber in concrete production offers an eco-friendly solution to the ever-growing problem of what to do with mountains of tires.
Through his research, Dr. Hassan has found that although concrete with rubber aggregate can exhibit many enhanced properties, rubber aggregates can also mean a significant
reduction in concrete strength; and can negatively affect flowability and stability of the mixture in self-consolidating concrete which is concrete that flows easily enough to fill a set form without the help of machinery.
For the past six years, Dr. Hassan has been correcting these deficits in strength and stability, and his contributions have been sought out by industrial partners, including Stantec Consulting, Capital Ready Mix, KD Custom Woodworking, and Kvaerner Canada.
Lightweight Concrete
One aspect of Dr. Hassan’s research pairs self-consolidating concrete with lightweight concrete. The resulting optimized lightweight concrete makes construction projects more costefficient.
The production of lightweight concrete mixtures, however, presents a distinctive challenge. “Lightweight aggregates have lower particle densities compared to the density of the mortar matrix and natural aggregates in concrete,” Dr. Hassan explains. “During vibration, lightweight aggregates tend to migrate upward to the surface of the concrete, potentially causing segregation. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in highly flowable concrete, presenting
Dr. Hassan with his students preparing sample concrete cylinders
additional challenges in developing lightweight self-consolidating concrete mixtures.”
So, what Dr. Hassan and his team do is develop self-consolidating concrete mixtures containing lightweight aggregates in different mixture compositions. They subsequently test the durability and structural performance of these newly developed concrete mixtures in both small-scale and full-scale concrete elements, such as beams, slabs, and columns, ensuring their adequate performance in real-life applications.
Dr. Hassan’s research in this area is of particular interest to Stantec Canada, a design and consulting engineering firm which has endeavored to provide its customers with durable lightweight concrete in offshore structures located in cold regions, and in response, Dr. Hassan, funded by NSERC Engage, began to develop lightweight mixtures with optimized strength and durability. These mixtures exhibited high resilience under freezing and thawing conditions with de-icing salts. The developed mixtures were designed using Stalite, a lightweight slate aggregate, in combination with optimized supplementary cementing materials and fibers.
Countertop Industry
Lightweight concrete mixtures are also applicable to the countertop industry. Dr. Hassan entered into a collaboration with KD Custom Woodworking Company to develop high-quality lightweight concrete countertop products for use in yacht and marine vessel design.
Dr. Hassan’s work with KD, funded by NSERC Engage, led to the development of novel and cost-effective lightweight countertops with high mechanical properties and durability. This improved the company’s product line and contributed to overall growth in their sales.
Predicting Arctic ice damage
Dr. Hassan has also worked to enhance the understanding of ice
abrasion and impact loading resistance of concrete in Arctic conditions.
A collaboration with Kvaerner Canada Inc. was successful in answering questions on how the concrete mixture proportions and mixture composition can influence the abrasion and ice impact loading resistance of concrete.
“By establishing correlations between the mechanical properties of concrete and its resistance to ice abrasion and impact loading, we are able to predict damage and long-term wear in concrete under Arctic conditions,” he says.
High-Pumpability and HighPerformance Concrete
Another collaboration with Capital Ready Mix Inc., funded by NSERC Engage, aimed to create pumpable concrete with reduced costs and low-cement content.
“We were able to recommend several low-cement mixtures with relatively high compressive strength and pumpability,” explains Dr. Hassan. “We did this by incorporating viscositymodifying admixtures and optimized supplementary cementing materials, while also optimizing the mixture proportions. Our research exceeded the company’s expectations.”
Student involvement
Dr. Hassan wouldn’t be able to accomplish all these projects without his students and other collaborators.
Besides assisting students with their experimental work in the lab, Dr. Hassan encourages his students to read a diverse range of journal articles. He meets with them regularly to discuss their takeaways from each article and offer suggestions on how they can enhance previous studies. “Usually when master’s and PhD students begin their programs, they haven’t published any academic papers,” explains Dr. Hassan. “But by the time they are done, every single one of my graduate students has
published journal articles and that helps them gain national and international recognition.”
In the past six years, three of Dr. Hassan’s PhD students, Mohamed Ismail, Basem Abdelaleem, and Ahmed Abouhussien, connected with industry partners - KD Custom Woodworking, Stantec Consulting Ltd, and Newcrete Investments Limited Partnership, respectively - through Industrial Outreach and NSERCEngage Projects.
Also, three PhD students, Ahmed Abouhussien, Mohamed Ismail, and Hossam Alalaily, received OISRA awards, with values of $99,000, $88,000, and $76,000, respectively. Dr. Abouhussien also received an NSERC Postdoctoral award.
Dr. Hassan is proud of his students and recognizes his collaborations with other professors also informs their work. At Memorial, a collaboration with Dr. Bruce Colbourne combined Dr. Hassan’s expertise in concrete with Dr. Colbourne’s insights into environmental loading and mechanisms of failure in cold regions. Beyond Memorial, Dr. Hassan collaborates with Dr. Wael ElDakhakhni at McMaster University, who specializes in Systems Simulation and data-driven models. Another collaboration with Dr. Mohamed Lachemi’s research team at Toronto Metropolitan University merged Dr. Hassan’s expertise with Dr. Lachemi’s expertise in Engineered Cementitious Composites and resulted in in-depth research contributions reflected in five published journal articles.
“It is a privilege to work with my fellow researchers,” says Dr. Hassan. “By sharing ideas, we come up with novel solutions to today’s industrial problems.”
Dr. Assem Hassan (B.Sc., M.Sc. (Ain Shams), MASc., PhD (Ryerson), P.Eng.) is a professor of civil engineering and a member of the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists Newfoundland and Labrador.
Dr. Hassan joined Memorial University as an assistant professor in Civil (Structural) Engineering in August 2010. He was promoted to associate professor in 2015 and full professor in 2020. His research focuses on testing large-scale structural elements, made of advanced concrete materials, under gravity and seismic loading.
Dr. Hassan’s research investigates the behaviour of concrete containing waste materials, by-products, and fibers in small-scale and large-scale concrete elements. Dr. Hassan is particularly recognized for
his pioneering research on the use of waste-tire rubber in construction technology to promote the development of eco-friendly buildings. His research findings in this area promoted the use of crumb and powder rubbers in concrete subjected to impact and seismic loading.
Dr. Hassan’s research highlights include the structural behavior of large-scale reinforced concrete elements under static and seismic loading; ductility and cracking behavior of large-scale concrete elements; development and use of self-consolidating concrete, high performance concrete, and high strength concrete; the use of steel and synthetic fibers, waste products and mineral admixtures in concrete mixtures; and the service life prediction of concrete structures.
Dr. Assem Hassan
Ground Displacement
Memorial researcher studies soil in order to help safeguard human life, the environment and infrastructure
In 1929, an earthquake on the Grand Banks triggered a massive underwater landslide, which generated a tsunami that reached towards Newfoundland. The waves in some narrow bays on the Burin Peninsula were as high as 13 m, and the tsunami claimed 28 lives. The earthquake displaced about 200 square kilometres of soil of 15-20 metres thick. The landslide generated debris that travelled up to 1,000 kilometres over the sea¬floor, severing twelve trans-Atlantic communications cables.
It’s not only landslides that can be destructive; any ground movement can be serious.
“Any ground displacement, whether it’s as small as a few centimeters or as large as hundreds of meters, can be very serious depending on the situation,” says Dr. Bipul Hawlader, a Memorial researcher who has been studying ground movements for over a quarter century. “Obviously, we don’t want to see any failure; that includes a door in a building that no longer opens properly due to ground movement, or cracks in the wall due to foundation settlement. Interestingly, many structures fail because of inappropriate soil conditions and ground displacement. In civil engineering, we can help safeguard human life, the environment and infrastructure by limiting the ground deformation.”
However, problems become extremely challenging when soil is displaced over a large distance, like in the 1929 Grand Banks earthquake. Today’s oil & gas infrastructure, for example, includes pipelines that can be heavily affected by landslides. Sometimes offshore oil & gas pipelines can go “walking” meaning they can experience up to a metre of upheaval in permafrost areas and several metres of lateral displacement on the seafloor.
“Ground deformation cannot be avoided; in fact, we need it for design,” says Dr. Hawlader, who was Research Chair in Seafloor Mechanics between 2016 and 2021. “For example, a pile will not provide any resistance from the soil unless it pushes the soil. However, problems arise if the displacement is beyond the acceptable limit, causing the failure of the ground or the structure on it.”
Large-scale landslide modelling is one of the main focuses of Dr. Hawlader’s research team. Thanks to various funding agencies, including NSERC, Canada Foundation for Innovation, MITACS, Government of NL and industry partners such as C-CORE, Equinor (formerly Statoil), Northern Crescent, and Wood Group. Dr. Hawlader and his team have been able to assist governments and industry safeguard expensive assets like pipelines and hydro-electric dams by determining the probability of large-scale landslides. They do this by studying soil mechanics and soil-structure interactions on projects that are currently on stream as well as future projects to see whether they are feasible.
Interestingly, many structures fail because of the ground. In civil engineering, we can help safeguard human life, the environment and infrastructure by limiting the ground deformation.
— Dr. Bipul Hawlader
In traditional geotechnical engineering, the potential failure of a slope is assessed by checking the stability of a single soil block near the slope. However, in many places, such as in Eastern Canada and Scandinavian countries, large landslides occur where a successive failure of many soil blocks retrogress in the upslope area, sometimes more than a kilometer. A recent one is the 2010 Saint Jude landslide in Quebec, where more than 30,000 square metres of soil was displaced due to a sensitive clay slope failure. The failed soil blocks, otherwise known as debris, can also move up to several kilometres in the downslope direction.
The impact of landslides can be seen in onshore environments. Small to gigantic landslides frequently occur in offshore continental slopes, although they are not visible because they occur underwater. The continental slope is the area of oil & gas developments in many countries, including offshore Newfoundland.
Physical modelling of such large-scale landslides cannot be done in the laboratory or even in a geotechnical centrifuge that uses scaling rules. Therefore, Dr. Hawlader’s research team developed advanced numerical tools that can explain the successive failure of many soil blocks and debris runout in landslides both onshore and offshore.
Take the 12.7-billion-dollar Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador, for example. The recently-sanctioned project is situated 280 km downstream from Churchill Falls, and adds 824-megawatts (MW) of generating capacity to the grid. Before the project could go ahead, extensive research had to be done to determine the strength of the soil on and around the North Spur peninsula which makes the Churchill River narrower and thus an obvious place to put a dam.
“The North Spur is about a kilometer long natural closure of the Churchill River that made the project economically viable,” says Dr. Hawlader. “However, the integrity of this natural dam must be maintained; otherwise, if there’s a substantial landslide, the project will be a total loss, in addition to environmental and infrastructure damages both upstream and downstream.”
Dr. Hawlader served on the Geotechnical Peer Review Panel with three other world-known experts, Drs. Serge Leroueil and Ariane Locat at Université Laval and Dr. Jean-Sébastien
L’Heureux at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, who assessed the design concepts and the concerns raised by other national and international experts as to whether the North Spur can withstand the force of the water when the dam is functioning.
“The whole process of this type of landslide cannot be explained using typical soil mechanics concepts,” says Dr. Hawlader. “While the failure initiation might be examined using the available soil mechanics theory, the huge displacement of the soil blocks could remould the soil almost to a fluid, especially for sensitive clays.”
In addition, water mixing during downslope movement fluidizes the debris that flows at high speed, sometimes more than twenty to thirty kilometers per hour offshore, and could cause a tsunami, as happened during the 1929 Grand Banks slide, and flooding after an onshore landslide.
“We still have a long way to go to understand these complex processes,” says Dr. Hawlader. However, he believes that with the advancement in computing facilities and field data collection tools, future research will be able to explain the mechanisms better. He will continue collaborating with other experts, including Dr. Kenichi Soga at the University of California, Berkeley (formerly at Cambridge University) and Dr. Didier Perret at Natural Resources Canada to further advance this research.
While extremely large deformation is challenging, the physical modelling and numerical tools can better explain the problems of small to moderate displacements.
“A large landslide in the ocean can cause a gigantic mass of soil to move several kilometres over the sea floor,” says Dr. Hawlader. “This is something energy companies have to take into consideration before laying pipelines – is the seafloor stable or not?”
One of Dr. Hawlader’s favourite research projects involves gas pipelines in permafrost zones where freezing and thawing are common causing heaving and settling of the pipes.
Collaborating with C-CORE researchers, Dr. Hawlader and his team did physical modelling using Dr. Jack Clark’s Geotechnical Centrifuge at C-CORE, and finite element programs were developed incorporating advanced soil models. Industry partners such as the Gas Research Institute, ExxonMobil and others provided the funding to develop a unique centrifuge test facility for chilled gas pipelines where the process could be modelled in a few hours to a few days while the field tests or real operating time could take twenty to thirty years.
“I am so grateful to C-CORE for giving us the opportunity to advance our research related to centrifuge tests, which
include riser-seabed-water; pipelinesoil; and iceberg-seabed-pipeline interaction modeling. These were done in collaboration with a number of C-CORE researchers, including Drs. Ryan Phillips, Jack Clark, and Arash Zakeri.
“Whatever has been done, the credit goes to my graduate students,” says Dr. Hawlader, who has supervised 40+ master’s and PhD students in their work on various aspects of geotechnical engineering, including large-scale landslides, onshore and offshore pipeline and risers, foundations and seafloor stability. Many of Dr. Hawlader’s former students have obtained jobs in their fields after graduation and some were promoted further to positions such as senior geotechnical engineer and principal engineer. For example, Dr. Hawlader’s former PhD student, Dr. Kshama Roy (M.Eng.’12, PhD’17), became the youngest principal engineer at Det Norske Veritas (DNV), an assurance and risk management company in Alberta that operates in more than 100 countries.
“I love challenging my students to solve practical research problems; however, I try to make sure that the students do not get frustrated because of the level of difficulty. One thing I always tell them is to concentrate on the quality of the papers they publish rather than be concerned with the number of publications they put out.”
Dr. Bipul C. Hawlader (B.Sc. Eng. (BUET), M.Eng. (AIT), PhD (Yokohama National), P.Eng.) joined the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Memorial as an associate professor in 2009 and was promoted to full professor in 2016. He was Research Chair in Seafloor Mechanics from 2016 to 2021.
After earning his B.Sc. in civil engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 1992; his master’s in geotechnical engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) in Thailand in 1995; and his PhD in geotechnical engineering from Yokohama National University in Japan in 1998, Dr. Hawlader worked as a research associate at Cambridge University in the UK and as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Western Ontario.
From 2002 to 2006, he worked at C-CORE as a senior research engineer on geotechnical issues related to onshore and offshore oil & gas development. Moving into consultancy, Dr. Hawlader worked as a senior geotechnical engineer with AMEC Earth and Environmental in Calgary for three years mainly on oil sands development projects.
As an expert in geotechnical engineering, he investigates things like large-scale landslides and run-out; onshore and offshore oil & gas pipelines; pile foundations; riser-seabed-water interaction; large deformation behaviour of soil; numerical analysis; centrifuge modelling; laboratory testing.
Dr. Bipul Hawlader
Ship Noise
Memorial researcher works on the development and testing of advanced concrete mixtures.
For those who live and work on ships, industrial noise is a real concern. For those who travel on ships for pleasure, onboard noise levels can make or break a vacation; different people perceive noise in different ways. For example, those who work on board a large vessel may be able to sleep through engine noise but those who are unaccustomed to the marine environment may not. If onboard noise levels are at 55 decibels, crew may not experience noise-induced fatigue effects, but guests, who have paid for comfort, might run to the captain complaining.
If engines can be designed and manufactured to be quieter, it will help everyone.
Enter Dr. Lorenzo Moro, associate professor in ocean and naval architecture. Dr. Moro has been studying ship acoustics since 2007 with a concentration on underwater radiated noise or URN for the past seven years.
Before coming to St. John’s, Dr. Moro worked with psychologists and engineers in his native Italy to design solutions to mitigate noise and optimize comfort levels aboard cruise ships. Since arriving in Newfoundland, he has been working to improve vessel design to mitigate occupational noise exposure.
“If workers are fatigued, they may not be as vigilant,” he says, adding that he not only looks at the duration of the exposure to noise, but also what people are doing when they are exposed. “Generally, for sleeping, you need fifty decibels or less,” he says. “Although it varies depending on age and gender, if the noise is more than that, it can result in noise-induced fatigue and stress.”
The current regulations in Newfoundland and Labrador state that exposure to less than eighty-five decibels is acceptable without having to wear ear protection. So, for a person working a full shift, that could mean listening to the equivalent of a roaring motorcycle for eight hours. Of course, there are different types of noise. The consistent hum of an engine is much different than hitting one piano key over and over and both have different effects on different people as well as different species.
That leads to the importance of designing ships better able to reduce the impacts of radiated noise, not only on humans, but also on other underwater life. “We can do tests on humans, but it is much harder to test species that live underwater,” explains Dr. Moro. “Also, there is only one species of humans, but underwater radiated noise affects dozens of different species of mammals and other underwater life. And what could be dangerous for one species may not be dangerous for another.”
Reducing the effects of URN on underwater life is indeed a complex problem, but Dr. Moro welcomes the challenge.
“It’s not just me; Drs. Heather Peng and Wei Qiu work on the optimal design for propellers, which are a main contributor to URN. I also have six students, four at the PhD level, working with other researchers, government and members of industry to reduce the impacts of URN on sea life.”
The first step is to work with biologists who can set limits in order to overcome things like hearing damage to a particular species or the masking effect of URN which can, for example, affect a whale’s ability to communicate or reproduce.
The next steps are where Dr. Moro comes in. He and his team need to first find out what information is needed to mitigate URN; things like understanding vessel design; identifying which pieces of machinery propagate noise and how each source contributes to the overall noise produced. On a large ship, a variety of sources contribute, such as the propellers, auxiliary pumps, refrigeration systems, ballast pumps and refinery systems in the case of vessels used in the oil & gas industry.
“Two important things we can do as engineers is to make recommendations on new ship design and also to ensure that the measuring system in use is accurate,” says Dr. Moro.
Regulations concerning noise levels vary from one jurisdiction to another, so how underwater radiated noise is measured is important. Engineers strive to reduce the inaccuracies in measuring instruments and to regulate a set of standards used to measure URN.
“Depending on where URN is measured, the results will be different,” says Dr. Moro, adding that could mean one ship having to slow down while another ship can carry on at higher speed. This could have a huge negative economic impact on ship owners, which can trickle down to consumers who may pay more for goods to compensate. “In order to regulate the measurement, we have to understand how noise propagates from a ship underwater and then set standards to measure URN, for example, at one metre on both sides of the vessel.”
“To measure noise on such a large scale, we must also ensure the technology is readily available and not cost prohibitive. For example, if hydrophones cost over $100,000 and are only available at two universities in Canada, using them to collect data is not an economically feasible option. In other words, we not only have to understand a problem, but we have to provide a feasible engineering solution from an economic point of view.”
Feasible is a keyword. In order to strike a balance between the best measuring equipment and feasibility, Dr. Moro’s team has been investigating three methods of collecting data. The first is floating buoys with three hydrophones at a depth of 100 metres; the second is an anchored hydrophone with a mooring line with a floating body that is connected to both the buoy and the hydrophone; and the third is an underwater glider that measures conductivity, temperature and density of the ocean over each metre it covers, while also recording URN.
This year, with funding from NSERC and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Dr. Moro’s students deployed a mooring system in Placentia Bay and left it there for six months to measure URN. They also deployed a glider which
can give a better 3D representation of URN. They then combined the six months of recuperated data with AIS data from the Automatic Identification System, which uses receivers to track ships throughout the world. This allowed them to see which noise came from what ship. This is more difficult than it sounds as they also have to remove certain environmental conditions from the equation.
“It is not a simple process to assess the underwater radiated noise produced by a ship,” says Dr. Moro. “We need to make sure the codes we write are accurate. Then once validated, we can use machine learning to differentiate between say a huge container ship that passes through twice a month versus many smaller fishing vessels and pleasure craft which generate lower noise but are present consistently. Our goal is to determine the impact of URN generated by smaller vessels compared to large ones.”
In June 2023, Dr. Moro’s students, in collaboration with the American Bureau of Shipping and E-Sonar, a local company whose mission is to improve access to marine and subsea environmental data, also got to collect data and take measurements for nine hours on board the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Terry Fox. Not only did the students study the URN produced by the ship, they also equipped the vessel with sensors underneath the diesel engine and inside the vessel above the propeller to measure vibrations. Collaborations like this are invaluable in preparing students for potential jobs in industry, and those who work alongside Dr. Moro are well equipped with the skills needed for successful careers.
One of Dr. Moro’s former students currently works as a noise expert with Robert Allen, a naval architecture company in Vancouver that designs tug boats. “They hired him because of his knowledge of URN,” says Dr. Moro, adding that a second former student works on the development of naval vessels in the Netherlands. “Memorial’s contribution is significant in the mitigation of underwater radiated noise. Not only do we have the only Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board or CEAB-approved program of Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering in Canada, but Dr. Wei Qiu, through his CISMaRT Initiative, has been offering a series of mini courses to engineers, as well as members of Transport Canada and industry to explain the complexity of the problem. See http://cismart.ca/applied-naval-architecture-course-modules/
It is possible to find an engineering solution only to find we have exacerbated another issue. For example, we may come up with propellers that are less noisy but also may be less efficient, increasing the amount of carbon dioxide produced. Or we may come up with a way to reduce propeller noise, but the constant noise from the diesel engine remains. In order to be successful, we need a whole team from engineering, economics, sociology, biology and oceanography to work together to come up with solutions.”
“We will continue to work to improve models and find the best design solutions to mitigate URN. This winter, for example, a work-term student will work to understand gaps in the Arctic by doing a thorough literature review. In the long run, the results of our research can help policy makers like Transport Canada develop and update regulations regarding URN. My team and I hope that our research can contribute to mitigating the impact of ship noise on both human and marine life.”
Dr. Lorenzo Moro (B.Eng, M.Eng, PhD) is an associate professor and acting department head of Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering. He completed his bachelor degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Trieste in 2007. For his master’s thesis (2010), he developed a new design method to simulate air-borne noise pollution from ships. Later, he worked as a research assistant at the Ship Noise and Vibration Laboratory at the University of Trieste, where he focused on the dynamic characterization of damping materials for marine applications, new design solutions for the improvement of on-board comfort in relation to noise and vibration, the dynamic characterization of resilient mounts for marine machinery, and dynamic simulations of ship structures.
For his PhD thesis (2015), Dr. Moro developed a new design method for the simulation of the structure-borne noise generated by marine diesel engines that are resiliently mounted. His main research interests involve ship structural dynamics and ship noise and vibration.
Dr. Lorenzo Moro
Carbon Management
Memorial researcher helps tackle climate change
The clock is ticking towards 2050 and the deadline for net zero carbon emissions. That means that researchers all over the world are concentrating on finding ways to prevent more carbon dioxide (CO2) from entering the atmosphere as well as removing existing CO2. This involves producing alternatives to fossil fuels and coming up with novel ways to capture, use, convert, and store CO2
Here in Newfoundland and Labrador, one of our leading experts on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is Dr. Sohrab Zendehboudi, a chemical and process engineering professor and research lead at Memorial.
Originally, the main reason Dr. Zendehboudi joined Process Engineering at Memorial in 2015 was to do reservoir analysis in a research chair position with funding from Statoil, now Equinor, as well as the provincial government.
Then, three years after joining Memorial, when the world began to move away from using fossil fuels, Dr. Zendehboudi, thinking of his students’ future and climate change, pivoted his research towards carbon management.
“I need to train my students in areas where they will get employment; in areas where industry and government are
looking for their expertise. When I prepare a proposal for a project, I look at what’s going to happen in the future. If I can respond to some of industry’s needs, then I know my students will be prepared to work in those areas. Otherwise, when they finish, they may not find a job.”
With that in mind, Dr. Zendehboudi, who is also a research collaborator and visiting scholar at UC Berkeley, prepared a proposal for CO2 capture, taking CO2 from different sources and storing it in underground formations. These underground formations could be petroleum reservoirs, saline formations, organic-rich shales, basalt formations, and un-mineable coal seams, depending on location, available storage capacity, the characteristics of the porous systems, and the safest and most economically feasible method for geological carbon storage.
“I am interested in all stages of carbon management,” says Dr. Zendehboudi. “Greenhouse gas emissions stand out as a paramount environmental concern in the discourse on climate change. Addressing global warming necessitates the implementation of CCUS strategies. The initial phase involves the capture of CO2 emitted from various sources, such as power plants or chemical facilities, before its release into the atmosphere. This captured carbon can then be redirected towards beneficial applications like fuel production. Alternatively, leveraging natural processes, such as direct air capture, allows for the extraction of carbon directly from the atmosphere. The subsequent step involves judicious utilization or secure storage of CO2. This entails employing CO2 as a raw material for the synthesis of biofuels or fertilizers, presenting a tangible approach to mitigating climate change impacts.”
Ocean-based carbon capture and utilization
One of the ongoing research projects in Dr. Zendehboudi’s Energy Environment Lab involves using brown algae in the ocean as biomass acting as a raw material that can be converted into biofuel like biohydrogen. This is a multi-disciplinary project with co-PIs in chemistry, Drs. Francesca Kerton and Talia Stockmann; mathematics, Dr. Hamid Usefi; process engineering, Dr. Yan Zhang; and business, Dr. Ginger Ke.
The decarbonization projects in Dr. Zendehboudi’s team are funded for three years through a federal exploration grant from The New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), NSERC, MITACS, and industrial partners in Ontario, including Advanced CERT Canada, which provides consulting in the area of environment, green energy, and nanotechnology.
“Despite the fact the world is moving towards net zero emissions, the world demand for fuel is only increasing. So, what we now need are clean fuels with minimum CO2 emissions. Because hydrogen is a carbon-free fuel that can be produced from various renewable sources and processes such as wind and biological methods, what I propose is hydrogen production using brown algae, and at the same time, carbon utilization.”
The research will determine interfacial, thermodynamic, reaction kinetics, and structural characteristics of brown algae. They will also be able to further understand the interaction and intermolecular forces between molecules involved in reactions. Finally, Dr. Zendehboudi and his team will look at energy and exergy analysis, optimal conditions, as well as an economic analysis of biohydrogen production.
There are several challenges in producing hydrogen from brown algae through both aerobic and anaerobic conversion modes. Dr. Zendehboudi and his team have to consider the oxygen sensitivity of hydrogen, nutrients, light intensity, energy use, reaction rate, and mass transfer rate.
My goal is always to assist my students to not only achieve a detailed understanding of physics and fundamental concepts but also to practically implement them in the real world.
— Dr. Sohrab Zendehboudi
Other challenges in using brown algae as a raw material in hydrogen production are considering what it will take to move from lab scale to industrial scale, educating the public to assure them the process will be safe, and finding industrial partners. “When it comes to carbon management, we need the government to come on stream as well, so that industry can leverage more from their funding.”
Alongside teaching, lab work, and these challenges, there is also the problem of finding enough time in the day to write research proposals, which require feedback from co-PIs. In fact, one may wonder why researchers like Dr. Zendehboudi stick with it. “Time management is definitely challenging,” says Dr Zendehboudi, “and every minute spent writing proposals takes away from time teaching and in the lab. But I am thinking of my students; they make it worthwhile.”
Seeing a student get exciting research results is what it’s all about for Dr. Zendehboudi, who has supervised and/or co-supervised more than 100 graduated students, including twenty-seven PhDs and fifteen post-doctoral fellows, many of whom are now faculty members or working in research sectors and chemical and energy industries, or graduate students continuing their education. “For example, when a student is doing experiments or simulation, they may get a result that might not be easy to interpret, that’s not what we’re expecting. The next step is to find justification to link to results. That is what makes it exciting,” says Dr. Zendehboudi, whose supervision focuses on critical thinking, creativity, and troubleshooting. “My goal is always to assist my students to not only achieve a detailed understanding of physics and fundamental concepts but also to practically implement them in the real world.”
Currently, there are about twenty students, including graduate and post-docs involved in CCUS and hydrogen research projects. Dr. Zendehboudi also works with visiting professors. “This might lead to later development of a research proposal,” he explains. “With such a large team, you need funding to support them, you need to have enough financial support to do the research.”
There is one year of funding left for the brown algae research. In the meantime, Dr. Zendehboudi has already submitted a proposal for a larger project. “This project is focused on various types of algae potential in Newfoundland and Labrador and elsewhere in Canada. Plus, I want to cover broader algae with different applications,” says Dr. Zendehboudi, who with Dr. Noori Saady from the Department of Civil Engineering, has prepared and submitted some funding proposals with a special focus on sustainable energy, hydrogen production, and CCUS.
Dr. Zendehboudi’s decarbonization research can lead to considerable economic and environmental benefits to Canada, particularly in green energy supply. And it is timely with the federal government announcing they will cover sixty per cent of capital costs on new carbon capture facilities.
Dr. Sohrab Zendehboudi is a chemical and process engineering professor and research lead focusing on various theoretical and practical challenges in energy and environment through experimental and modeling investigations. He holds a PhD in chemical engineering (specializing in transport phenomena) from the University of Waterloo and his current research interests include carbon capture, utilization, conversion and sequestration.
Between 2016 and 2021 Dr. Zendehboudi was Statoil (now Equinor) Chair in Reservoir Analysis mentoring master’s and doctoral students to become highlyqualified personnel in the area of examining long-term and optimal oil recovery methods from the province’s reservoirs, with a focus on efficient reservoir characterization methods as well as optimized oil production from complex offshore fields.
So far, Dr. Zendehboudi has co-authored 291 journal papers and has written three books and three book chapters in the areas of Energy & Environment. He is one of the world’s top scientists on Stanford University’s 2% list (2021-23) and in 2023, won the CSChE Lectureship Award, a national award from the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering. In addition, Dr. Zendehboudi was recipient of the 2020 Dean’s Award for Research Excellence as well as the 2019 Terra Nova Young Innovator’s Award, a university-wide award for outstanding research contributions and leadership.
At Memorial, he has secured over $7.0 M in various external and internal research funding, coming from MITACS, NFRFExploration, NSERC Discovery Grant, Ocean Frontier Institute, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), Equinor, NSERC Engage, NL Government, Suncor Energy, MUN, NSERC CRD, InnovateNL, and NSERC RTI.
Dr. Sohrab Zendehboudi
Predictive control
Self-driving ships and down-hole drilling employ similar technology to monitor and control autonomous operations
Self-driving ships or autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) are being developed to reduce accidents caused by human error in the shipping industry. Although not yet common, they are expected to be mainstream within the next decade.
The ships won’t operate without human intervention, but rather will operate autonomously in low traffic and unrestricted waters, with an onboard or onshore operator able to resume control when there is an abnormal situation or when the autonomous controller is unable to handle the situation.
The control systems being developed are strictly defined with autonomous decisions only allowed in certain scenarios. Even within these constraints, however, the marine environment can change quickly with wind, waves and currents as well as surrounding obstacles such as ships and ice.
Dr. Syed Imtiaz, professor and department head of Process Engineering at Memorial, is an important player in developing a controller or computer program to help autonomous vessels develop, plan and follow navigation routes in a safe manner within an unstructured and unpredictable environment. This requires precision sensors and obstacle detection capabilities, robust guidance and control systems.
“Autonomous surface ships require very few crews to navigate, but in order to successfully navigate without humans at the helm, autonomous ships need to maintain stability and avoid obstacles,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “This is one of the
biggest challenges. Though you may think working with autonomous vessels should be easy since we already have autonomous cars; the challenge lies in the fact that cars and ships are completely different. Cars are only operating on one surface and with limited movement, whereas ships have many different degrees of freedom and are constantly pounded by disturbances like waves, current, wind and in some cases ice,” explains Dr. Imtiaz. “In a ship, each thruster can be one megawatt. It’s like a mini powerhouse; in scale it is much bigger than a car, which on average is 300 horsepower. Thus, the ship takes much more time to respond.”
Within an autonomous system, Dr. Imtiaz strives to mimic the behavior of a human operator. When a car driver sees a red light, for example, they take their foot off the gas. Dr. Imtiaz and his team can use this predictive behaviour as well. They are developing controllers based on a technique called Model Predictive Control that uses a mathematical model of a vessel to predict future responses and selects the actions that give the best responses.
In close collaboration with the National Research Council (NRC) in St. John’s, they have implemented a controller to work with a model ship. The ship, in this case a 1 to 19-scale model of the Magna Viking, has undergone testing in the NRC wave tank, which is right next door to the engineering building on Memorial campus.
Dr. Imtiaz’s team, composed of co-PI Dr. Salim Ahmed, two post-docs, Drs. Hondanaidelage Chamara Tharindu Eranga Fernando and Farhana Akter, PhD Candidate Osama Alagili and two master’s students, Tanjil Islam and Charuka Priyankara, has developed an optimization algorithm. “The main feature of our controller is it predicts the future course of the ship,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “It is predictive, rather than reactive, and, based upon future behaviours, the ship takes the best course of action.”
Dr. Imtiaz and his team tested out their controller for dynamic positioning to maintain the ship position under extreme wave conditions. “When we compared the performance to a regular controller, we could see how much better this particular controller was behaving. That is so exciting for the students. It’s a great experience for them.”
Another objective of this controller is energy savings. The idea is to not react to random disturbances which usually cancel themselves out. This serves two purposes; less high frequency movement for the thrusters, as well as less energy consumption leading to lower greenhouse gas emissions. In the tests in the NRC-OCRE’s wave basin, the newly developed controller delivered better performance and also minimized energy because of the smart algorithm in the controller.
The team is now developing this same genre of controller for navigation in open water in the presence of other vessels and ice. The major activities of the navigation system are path planning, collision avoidance, and tracking of the defined path using dynamic controllers. The other part is predicting the risk of collisions and taking necessary action to avoid them.
“We use complex algorithms to decide whether a collision is imminent and, if there is a probable collision, the possible course of action,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “We wouldn’t be able to do this research without the NRC,” he adds, explaining
how the NRC researchers are experts at numerical modelling and experimentation. “We are so appreciative of their cash and in-kind contributions. This kind of research normally takes millions of dollars but because the NRC allows us to use their world-class facility right next door as in-kind contribution, we are able to do our research with a budget of $200,000.”
The technology Dr. Imtiaz uses to tackle the problem of autonomous shipping is not new to him. He has been using similar technology for almost a decade to develop a controller to help automate drilling operations in the offshore oil & gas industry. The system he has developed is called managed pressure drilling (MPD) and allows oil & gas companies to safely drill in the most challenging situations.
Dr. Imtiaz and his team are currently developing an advanced choke controller for the MPD system. If a drill bit rotates and cuts through rock that makes up the ocean floor, small chips break off and have to be moved out of the way of the drill bit in order for work to progress. To do this, water-based or oilbased mud is inserted to push the rock chips up and around the drill bit.
“At the bottom hole of the drilling system, there is high pressure in the fluid in the rock,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “We have to balance the pressure coming from the reservoir so that fluid doesn’t enter the drilling hole. If it does, it can potentially travel all the way to the surface, where if it comes in contact with a spark, it can cause an explosion.”
Typically, fluid is pumped in and pressure is maintained at the bottom; if you want more pressure, you increase the density of the fluid. “In an MPD system, a valve is added at the top outlet,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “This will create back pressure and in turn, lead to more control on the system pressure.”
In order to regulate the valve, a controller is needed. This is not as easy as it sounds. “It is very difficult to develop a controller for the valve at the top, because there is so much variation from one system to another,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “Within the fluid, there are different rocks and chips, and also the valve and fluid behave in a non-linear fashion. This has been a challenging problem.”
MASS research team in front of the Offshore Engineering Basin of NRC-OCRE Front row (From left): Hasanat Zaman, Syed Imtiaz, Shameem Islam, Bob Gash; Back Row: Kevin Murrant, Osama Alagili, Charuka Priyankara, Eranga Fernando and Farhana Akter
Dr. Imtiaz is not one to give up, however. For more than a year, he, his co-PI Dr. Salim Ahmed and their team, which includes one post-doc, Dr. Tareq Uz Zaman and one master’s student, MD Rahat Zaman, have been collaborating with Beyond Energy in Alberta, a Canadian company that supplies managed pressure drilling choke manifolds to drilling companies. Their goal: to develop a fully automated choke controller for MPD.
Just to be clear, the controller is mostly computer calculations, with the physical part for data transfer. Current controllers require frequent intervention by operators. Whenever there is a change in field conditions, they have to make adjustments. The whole purpose is to make it more autonomous and more robust so there’s little need to make adjustments in the field.
“With funding from an NSERC Alliance MITACS grant with Beyond Energy as an industry collaborator, we have developed two versions of robust controllers; they are now being tested at Beyond Energy’s pilot-scale setup in Edmonton, and they are showing good performance. The next step is field tests.”
“The biggest challenge we face is technical; there are simply too many variables,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “There is so much variation in the system, it is very difficult to account for all these changes and difficult to find one universal controller to manage all scenarios.”
At the same time, when Beyond Energy applied the new choke controller, the industrial department came back amazed by the preliminary results.
“They looked at our controller and the improvement they saw, and said if you could make a controller to respond to all conditions, that would be amazing,” says Dr. Imtiaz. “That is the most exciting part of this work.”
Dr. Syed Imtiaz (B.Sc., M.Sc. (BUET), M.Sc. (Calgary), PhD (Alberta), P.Eng.) is a professor and head of the Department of Process Engineering.
His interests lie in process monitoring, artificial intelligence, process control, modelling and simulation.
With a master’s degree in environmental engineering and a PhD in process control, Dr. Imtiaz joined the Faculty of Engineering at Memorial in March 2010 as an assistant professor in process engineering.
Previous to coming to Memorial, Dr. Imtiaz worked as a staff consultant in the Advanced Process Control group at Aspen Technology, where he implemented advanced control solutions to a wide range of industries including different
units (CDU, HDS, FCC) of refineries, ethylene plant, methanol plant and other petro-chemical plants.
His research goal is to maximize yield while maintaining safe operation in processing industries. Currently Dr. Imtiaz is working on developing advanced monitoring and control tools by using multivariate statistical tools and the Bayesian belief network for complex reasoning and online diagnosis of process faults.
Dr. Imtiaz’ research is motivated by practical problems and finds its application to two key areas relevant to this province: offshore oil and gas, and marine autonomous surface ships. Dr. Imtiaz has published one book and more than 150 peerreviewed journals and conference proceedings.
Dr. Syed Imtiaz
Antennas and anechoic chambers
Dr. Weimin Huang’s futuristic lab
Hidden away near the far end of the fifth floor of Memorial’s Core Science Facility is an air-purified metal chamber that would not be out of place in a Dr. Who episode. Or, for the younger generation, a Minecraft world.
Inside, foot-long dark grey foam stalactites cover the walls and ceiling. And within about 10-15 seconds of entering, you watch the bars on your cell signal drop one by one until you are signal-less.
What is this place and why is it here?
In order to find out, you have to locate Dr. Weimin Huang and his Remote Sensing group, who use the radio wave clean room or anechoic chamber to do measurements for antenna design.
“The anechoic chamber has the ability to block radio waves,” says Dr. Huang, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Because the foam stalactites absorb all external signals, preventing any reflection, it is a perfect place to conduct experiments on the antennas we design, which are then used in radar to emit electromagnetic waves
Dr. Weimin Huang in the anechoic chamber
to the environment and sense reflections.”
Dr Huang and his team, composed of Drs. Eric Gill and Reza Shahidi, as well as several doctorate and master’s students, are interested in three main types of radar.
1. High-frequency ground wave radar for ocean remote sensing
The first is high-frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR) for ocean remote sensing, which Dr. Huang has been investigating for thirty years.
“It was because of Memorial’s world-leading reputation in HFSWR research that I decided to pursue further graduate studies in St. John’s,” says Dr. Huang, explaining that he and his team use HFSWRs on land they lease in Argentia and St. Brides in Placentia Bay to measure wind, waves and current, as well as hard targets, such as ships and icebergs. “We have come a long way in this field. In the beginning, we focused on theoretical development of the radar cross-section models of ocean surface under varying conditions and corresponding application algorithms. Now we are collecting field data using the HFSWR systems to validate and enhance the models and algorithms developed,” explains Dr. Huang.
2. X-band Marine Radar
The second type, which Dr. Huang has been involved with since 2008, is X-band Marine Radar using rotating antennas on ships or towers. The radar data collected can help seafarers immediately understand the sea state including waves, current and wind. The fact that the information is immediate can greatly help a ship’s captain navigate the safest, most cost-effective route.
Grad student Zhiding Yang works in the Remote Sensing Lab to clean up
contaminated radar data, for example, images blurred by rain.
“Rain-contaminated data is usually discarded, but we can clean it up in real time,” says Dr. Huang.
“We are the first to use this type of technique,” adds Mr. Yang, who in 2022, was awarded second prize, based on his research, in the Student Poster Paper Competition sponsored by MTS/IEEE Oceans Conference in Chennai, India. In 2023, Mr. Yang was also a finalist in the Best Student Poster Paper Competition at the MTS/IEEE Oceans Conference, Gulf Coast, USA.
Mr. Yang employs advanced machine learning and image processing to do his work. “In the future, I hope to contribute to the safety of ocean research and marine activities,” he says. “I hope I can apply my advanced methods of measuring ocean waves and winds to ensure maritime activities, such as ship navigation and coastal water recreation, are as safe
as possible. This research aims to enhance the precision of sea surface parameter measurements, which enables people to access timely and reliable sea state forecasts to specific activity areas, allowing them to avoid hazardous conditions or take necessary precautions for a safer and more prepared experience.”
Yi Li, a master’s student in the Remote Sensing Lab, works alongside Mr. Yang to develop new algorithms to improve the methods to extract information regarding currents, including their speed and direction. “We use real radar data provided by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) in Halifax; Ocean Networks Canada; and Oregon State University,” says Ms. Li, explaining she employs the dispersion relationship in her research to describe the relationship between waves and ocean currents. “By comparing the difference between the measured and theoretical values of the wave frequencies, we can estimate the ocean current velocity that affects the waves.”
Dr. Weimin Huang providing one-on-one guidance to graduate student
3. Global Navigation Satellite System –Reflectometry (GNSS-R)
The third type of radar, which Dr. Huang has worked on for twelve years, is a Global Navigation Satellite System – Reflectometry or GNSS-R. When GPS signals hit the earth, they bounce back and a lot can be learned about the earth’s surface from these bounced signals. Dr. Huang and his team are working on special antennas to receive the reflected signals which can accurately show the ocean surface providing information on things like wave height, surface wind speed, oil spills and the detection of sea ice.
Master’s student, Jesse Chen is taking sea ice detection one step further; his research is focused on using GNSS-R to not only detect, but to also classify sea ice in remote areas. While the detection of sea ice is fairly accurate, classification still needs some research.
“Classifying the types of ice is vital in maritime navigation safety,” says Mr. Chen, explaining that older ice such as multiyear-ice (MYI) poses a greater hazard to ship hulls. Classifying the ice also presents a better picture of the current Arctic climate.
Mr. Chen is researching whether rainfall is a contributing factor in the degradation of the GNSS-R based sea ice classification accuracy. Previously, it was believed that GNSS-R measurements were completely unaffected by rain, since
GNSS signals are broadcast within the low frequency L-band. L-band signals are known to be highly resilient to atmospheric attenuation - this is why you can still use GPS during a rainstorm.
“In the context of sea ice classification, the rain is not an issue while airborne,” explains Mr. Chen. “The potential interference comes from the rain interacting with the ice surface and altering the reflection behaviours.”
The objective of the study is not only to identify a correlation between rainfall and GNSS-R based ice classification accuracy, but also to apply computer models to quantify and mitigate the rain interference effects.
“This study is important because it provides quantitative metrics for rain interference of GNSS-R sea ice classification for the first time and offers solutions to improve the classification accuracy. Improved classification accuracy makes GNSS-R a more viable option for remotely monitoring sea ice effectively, providing greater coverage of Arctic geophysical measurements, thus benefiting climate research and economic interests in the Arctic.”
Killick-1
Another exciting project, in collaboration with other faculty members and the vice-president of remote sensing at C-CORE, Desmond Power, was to design and build a
micro-satellite with funding from the Canadian Space Agency as part of its Canadian CubeSat Project. Dr. Huang’s and Mr. Power’s team built a bread-loaf-sized satellite known as Killick-1.
“This is the first Newfoundland-and-Labrador-designed CubeSat,” says Dr. Huang. “The students custom-designed everything including five subsystems - communication to the ground; power; attitude determination and control; command/data handling; and the payload.”
Killick-1 was successfully launched into space via the International Space Station in March 2024 and began its orbit 400 kilometres above Earth allowing the students to use global navigation satellite system reflectometry to collect data on sea ice, waves and wind. This method is considerably cheaper than traditional methods currently in use.
“The fact the students will be responsible for its operation is amazing,” says Dr. Huang. “This experience will provide them with training in space science and technology, hopefully leading to careers in telecommunications and the aerospace industry.”
Hyperspectral Imaging
Another area of research for Dr. Huang is hyperspectral imaging which is used in the field of urban planning to classify land; for example, trees, rocks, and fences. Using public data, third year PhD student, Xin Qiao uses deep learning and computer vision to develop algorithms to extract land information from hyperspectral images.
Deep Learning is a sub-field of machine learning. Machine learning teaches machines to learn from data and make predictions based on what they learn, whereas deep learning is inspired by the human brain. In deep learning, artificial neural networks are created that can learn to recognize patterns such as speech and image recognition.
“Hyperspectral imaging is an advanced imaging technique that captures spectral signatures across the electromagnetic spectrum,” says Mr. Qiao. “Compared with traditional imaging techniques which capture three bands; i.e. red, green, and blue; hyperspectral imaging records
hundreds of narrow and contiguous bands, providing more abundant spectral information.”
These algorithms, which involve each pixel being broken into various spectral bands, can eventually be integrated in software to be used in the field of urban planning.
“I want to improve the recognition accuracy,” says Mr. Qiao, who won the Wally Read Best Student Paper Award at IEEE NECEC in 2022. “I want to use AI to extract more information from the remote sensing data so that we can have a better understanding of resources, agriculture, urban, etc.”
Wind Turbines
Another project Dr. Huang’s students are involved in is wind turbines. Syed Zeeshan Haider Rizvi investigates defects in wind turbine rotors using computer vision.
“It is a great pleasure to work on many exciting projects with the students and faculty members of the Remote Sensing Lab as well as many other colleagues at Memorial,” says Dr. Huang. “We are very happy to see that Remote Sensing at Memorial University is ranked among the top 100 in the world. We are also extremely grateful to Memorial’s investment in the lab and the funding support from multiple agencies.”
Supervisors of the group (from left to right, Drs. Reza Shahidi, Weimin Huang, Eric Gill)
Dr. Weimin Huang (Ph.D., P.Eng., SMIEEE), professor, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering received his B.Sc., M.Sc. in radio physics (radio wave propagation and antenna) and a PhD in space physics from the School of Electronic Information at Wuhan University in 1995, 1997, and 2001, respectively. He also completed an additional M.Eng. and a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in electrical and computer engineering at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in 2004 and 2007, respectively.
He worked as a design engineer with Rutter Technologies in St. John’s, from 2008 to 2010 when he began teaching in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied
Science at Memorial. He became a full professor in 2019 and department deputy head 2020-23.
He has authored over 300 research papers; his students have won 30+ paper awards, and since 2022, Dr. Huang has been included in the World’s Top 2% scientists list released by Stanford University. His past and present research interests include the mapping of oceanic surface parameters and targets via high-frequency ground wave radar, X-band marine radar, global navigation satellite systems, and synthetic aperture radar, digital image processing and applied electromagnetics.
Dr. Weimin Huang
Butterfly wings and shark skin
Nature inspires Memorial researcher to develop anti-corrosion and anti-icing properties
Have you ever missed a winter flight connection because the airplane wings required de-icing?
Or have you ever helped scrape barnacles off a boat hull to repel growth of marine organisms?
If so, you’ll be happy to hear that Dr. Xili Duan, associate professor and deputy head of graduate studies in mechanical engineering, has been working diligently for over six years to help alleviate these problems.
Dr. Duan develops surface coatings that shed water and are thus less prone to freezing, not only for the surfaces of airplane wings, and boat hulls, but also underwater and land pipelines, and wind turbines.
Let’s examine the problem of barnacles on the hull of a boat. As algae and other marine organisms begin to grow on the hull, the boat becomes slower in the water resulting in more time at sea and more fuel required to push it through the water. Since it’s not feasible to change the entire hull for drag reduction, mariners must rely on something like an antifouling paint to do the job.
In the past, many of the anti-fouling paints were toxic. Multiply this by the thousands of large ships operating internationally and what you get are harbours contaminated by so many microscopic chips of paint that some industrial ports are void of sea life. Today the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has
Dr. Xili Duan (right) and graduate students in the thermal fluids lab. (From left: Syed Muhammad Ammar and Seyed Shahram Khalilinezhad
banned these toxic coatings and industry has responded by making the switch to non-toxic more durable coatings.
And these environmentally-sustainable coatings are developed by researchers like Dr. Duan, who says his ideas come from nature.
“There are many plants and animals that have amazing functional surfaces,” he says. “For example, butterfly wings have the ability to repel water and keep dry; lotus leaves repel water and are self-cleaning; shark skins reduce drag; and penguin feathers repel water and ice and help keep the penguin warm.”
By studying these naturally occurring water-repellent surfaces, Dr. Duan has developed his own recipe to improve water-repellent coating properties on metals. In order to establish the best possible recipe for a target metal, Dr. Duan’s team looks not only at different surface materials, but also at the best surface texture to apply to the materials. This two-part treatment is their magic bullet.
“We sometimes use lasers to create microscale patterns on the surface, making the surface rough in order for the coating to better adhere,” says Dr. Duan. “We also frequently use sandblasting, as well as coating to create random roughness.”
How it works is Dr. Duan and his team prepare 20cm x 20cm metal samples, using numerical models to analyse the pieces and then do a pretreatment of the surface. Their focus is on things that operate in harsh environments, basically, anything ice can cover above water on a superstructure in cold regions.
“I look at the big picture,” says Dr. Duan. “My research is not limited to one surface. For example, I’m also interested in fluid mechanics and investigating the interface between a metal surface and fluid in a pipe, the internal flow of a fluid, like oil, enclosed in a pipe.”
Dr. Duan and his team look at manipulating the inner surface of long pipelines. If a fluid is viscous, flow friction will cause a pressure drop of the flow, and pumps are needed to overcome the resulting friction. “The amount of friction is determined by the interface between the pipe’s inner surface and the liquid,” says Dr. Duan. “If we can change the interface or boundary, we can achieve a more slippery boundary. In other words, if we have a super lubricated inner surface, the flow will have less inner friction.”
To reduce drag or friction in pipelines, Dr. Duan and his team have tested two things: adding coatings on the inner surface making a super hydrophobic slippery surface, enabling the oil or whatever is in the pipeline to flow more freely, and also adding tiny amounts of chemical additives (the concentration is so low, it’s measured in parts per million) to crude oil, for example. This drag reduction agent can be polymers, or surfactants.
Dr. Duan’s next project will look at the synergy between two masses; what happens if you employ both remedies, the chemical additive combined with surface manipulation. “One plus one may be larger than two,” he said. “The physics at the interfaces of matters are fascinating and the diverse functionalities of engineered surfaces are amazing, especially for applications in sustainable energy systems,” said Dr. Duan.
Dr. Duan has also studied how to reduce hazardous ice buildup on wind turbines. “If turbines are covered in ice, you lose efficiency; ice can also break a turbine blade or ice falling from a turbine blade can cause serious injury. We want to prevent that. We have demonstrated in the lab that by using a water-repellent property, water droplets will slip off before freezing. We have also demonstrated that on a horizontal surface, where it’s hard to shed water, we can increase the time it takes for water droplets to freeze on the surface; this is also very useful for aircraft.”
This research, which is funded by an Ocean Frontier Institute’s seed grant, could be extremely beneficial in the North Atlantic and Canadian Arctic regions where undesirable ice formation has become a significant challenge for the exploration and transportation of resources. Severe icing can damage power
Dr. Xili Duan and graduate student
Dan McLean in front of a wind tunnel
transmission and communication systems, and risk the safety of offshore structures and marine vessels, as well as their personnel. Repairs are costly.
But Dr. Duan’s ice protection techniques can delay or prevent the accumulation of atmospheric and/or sea spray ice on these structures. Basically, there are two methods of anti-icing — active and passive.
Active anti-icing methods use external energy to prevent ice formation or to melt and remove the ice after its aggregation, but are very expensive.
Passive anti-icing techniques rely on the physical or chemical properties of the structure surface to prevent ice formation, but cannot be trusted to provide reliable ice protection in harsh marine environments.
Through his research, Dr Duan is attempting to develop a low-cost hybrid ice protection technique that combines the advantages of both active and passive methods, by adding anti-icing properties to the surface of marine structures in a superhydrophobic coating with a pulse heating film under it.
Dr. Duan’s work is challenging, especially the multidisciplinary nature of the research. To be successful, the team requires a wide range of skills in physics, chemistry, and mechanical
engineering. “It’s often a challenge to find available students with the required background,” he says.
Another technical challenge is related to scalability. “Often it’s easier to have a concept on paper or a computer model developed, but it’s much harder to realize the idea and develop a functional product or process,” he explains. “It’s easier to develop a technology in the lab and validate it on a small scale, but much harder to scale it up to real engineering application.”
The positive aspects far outweigh the challenges. Not only are the superhydrophobic surfaces developed by Dr. Duan and his team being used commercially, but their students are getting valuable experience in reducing drag in pipelines and on marine vessels; as well as anti-icing surfaces to prevent or mitigate icing on aircraft, wind turbines, or offshore structures in cold regions.
“The best part is definitely training students,” says Dr. Duan. “The fact we know they will be well equipped to work in this industry makes all the challenges worthwhile.”
Dr. Xili Duan (Ph.D., P.Eng., FCSME), associate professor and deputy head of Graduate Studies in mechanical engineering, is also an advisor for the Energy Systems Engineering Program as well as chair of the CSME Technical Committee on Advanced Energy Systems.
He studies thermal and fluidic properties and processes at interfaces of matters (solid-liquid-gas) and develops functional surfaces and techniques to control these properties or processes in engineering applications, particularly energy systems.
Dr. Xili Duan
Facility Spotlight:
Intelligent Systems Lab
Memorial prof helps robots navigate where GPS is unavailable
Imagine a drone delivering a package when the satellite signal suddenly disappears. The drone either drops out of the sky or lands in the middle of nowhere with your ten-yearold’s birthday present.
Now, imagine a massive automated ship sailing itself through heavy ice in the Northwest Passage. Things would get really tricky if satellite signals were suddenly kaput.
Currently, drone delivery and autonomous ship navigation technologies both primarily rely on GPS signals. What happens when GPS is unavailable?
This is one of the many problems researchers are determined to work out in Memorial’s Intelligent Systems Lab (ISL), which uses robotics and machine learning in its research into adaptive navigation strategies or autonomous navigation in GPS-denied areas.
Team with DJI M300 drone with payload version 2 performing hardware in the loop simulation. From left : Luca Mason (Term 4 Mechanical Coop work term - Payload testing), Nirasha Herath (MEng , AI landing zones, in progress), Thakshila Thilakanayake (PhD, Radar superresolution, in progress), Adeel Ashan (MEng, VTOL trajectory planning, in progress)
“When a driverless taxi is zipping along with two passengers in the back seat, we know that when the car enters a tunnel and suddenly loses the satellite signal, extra technology exists to allow the car to continue navigating safely,” says Dr. De Silva, ISL lead and associate professor of mechanical engineering.
“In the Intelligent Systems Lab, we want to bring similar technology to drone and marine autonomous surface ships or MASS; things like the use of highdefinition mapping for navigation, LiDARs and Radar to sense and react to the surroundings.”
“Although marine autonomous surface ships and unmanned aircraft generally operate in open areas where GPS is taken for granted, GPS is susceptible to failure, signal loss, and spoofing.”
Spoofing? Spoofing is where civilian GPS signals can be mimicked, throwing off the navigation of the whole platform.
“GPS signals are not like mobile phone signals,” explains Dr. De Silva. “GPS signals are not encrypted in any way; if there are too many bad players mimicking bogus GPS positioning signals, they can easily mislead you.”
And it’s hard to bring such people to justice because they might leave no digital signatures. But whether it’s spoofing out of malice, or a government scrambling signals for cyber security reasons, operating large autonomous vehicles in areas where GPS is unavailable can lead to disaster if not addressed properly.
“Loss of GPS signals is a main cause of drone failure,” said Dr. De Silva. “But when sensors like Radars, LiDARs and cameras are available, we can still manage navigation in GPS-denied environments.”
“Currently we are developing custom sensor payloads, or small boxes, that can attach to autonomous platforms and generate real-time maps and navigation position information in unknown environments,” explained Dr. De Silva. “If several of these payload modules are attached together, for example around the hull of a ship, they will work together to provide a more detailed description of the surroundings.”
Because ships and aircraft operate in some of the harshest conditions on
We want to develop Canadian capability in the GPS-denied navigation field
— Dr. Oscar De Silva
earth, Dr. De Silva’s Intelligent Systems research looks at hardware and software that can operate in nasty weather. In partnership with Memorial’s ABS Harsh Environment Technology Center and the National Research Council Flight Research Lab in Ottawa, researchers in the Intelligent Systems Lab are continually refining the problems they address to suit Canadian research needs.
“We want to develop Canadian capability in the GPS-denied navigation field,” says Dr. De Silva, who admits that the work, although rewarding, can be difficult. “For example, the level of complexity involved with integrating the many sensors on board a ship or a helicopter is a unique challenge. We have to make sure various components are compatible and synced with each other for navigation purposes and also deal with practical concerns like vibration.”
With vibration, the quality of the data collected can be affected, or hardware screws can loosen and things can fall off. In order to deal with this problem, Dr. De Silva and his team have repurposed a dynamic test stand for vibration testing of payloads that go on helicopters and drones.
“Flying is always dangerous with the risk of losing the equipment, so managing this risk and having contingency plans in place is a major part of our experimentation. We have to see if the data is coming in properly and that nothing is coming loose. So far,
we`ve been lucky enough to operate with zero safety incidents in the field.”
The most exciting work done in the Intelligent Systems Lab is that Dr. De Silva and his team develop systems that can generate flight maps and GPS-denied positioning information in real time.
“Many labs use drones to capture environmental readings and create maps for various research needs, but most do this offline,” says Dr. De Silva. “In our system, however, the data is analysed in real time, during flight so the readings and maps can help with the actual flight in progress. We also try to bring more challenging sensors to the mix, such as radars, thermal cameras, and newer generation LiDARs aiming at all-weather high resolution map generation and navigation.”
The best part of the research is that students are being trained in
developing sensors and algorithms that allow autonomous vehicles to operate in real-world settings. Each term sees about five PhD students, four master’s and one or two co-op students engaged in GPS-denied research. And the students have moved their experiments from indoors to the great outdoors.
“Since 2010 we have been working in the Intelligent Systems Lab on smaller sensors and algorithms. This indoor work has since evolved to outdoor large-scale applications. For example, we are working on autonomous ships operating in polar ice conditions, and large-scale VTOL aircraft transitioning to GPS-denied flight and executing emergency maneuvers,” said Dr. De Silva, who is the third Intelligent Systems research lead after Drs. Ray Gosine and George Mann.
“Building new hardware and getting to fly that hardware on drones, on
board ships, and aircraft for testing is always exciting for the students,” says Dr. De Silva, explaining they have developed handheld devices that use AI and computer vision to collect ice data. These are phones with custom AI modules one hundred per cent developed by Memorial students.
“A couple of ice captains on Canadian icebreakers feed us data; they do daily ice charting on the ships and when data comes back, we can make better versions of AI modules that are trained to understand what ice is there and understand the risks.”
Dr. De Silva and his collaborators have a custom app to flag the data. For example, an image taken by camera can determine whether it’s looking at first year or multi-year ice or how much concentration of ice is in the vicinity. An ice navigator will take the app’s assessment and correct it as needed. Once we get this data
During field trials at the NRC Flight research lab Ottawa 2022. From left: Didula Dissanayaka (MEng, visual LiDAR navigation, graduated 2022), Dr. Oscar De Silva, Ravindu Thalagala (PhD Student, visual-inertial navigation, in progress), Sahan Gunawardana (Term 5 Mechanical Coop work term – Payload manufacturing)
My involvement in the intelligent systems lab team and exposure to cutting-edge drone and navigation sensor technologies has shaped my research path.
— Ravindu Thalagala, PhD Student
labeled by experts, we will have an image dataset of various ice conditions and code that can be matched using AI on an ice navigation front.
This will improve safety in Arctic shipping as well as in the St. Lawrence seaway when captains who are less accustomed to ice conditions, need safety systems to assess the risk.
“We also have two generations of navigation payloads, also one hundred per cent designed by MUN students under the guidance of industry experts, for flight on helicopters. Students always love to fly their software and hardware, and come up with newer and faster ways of processing the data.”
Students have advanced from driving cars equipped with the navigation sensors in order to map parts of St John’s to flying larger scale drones. Whether they fly the drone over a quarry in CBS or around Cape St. Francis, they learn to identify and program safe areas to land and areas to avoid. On May 25, 2022, three students had the ultimate thrill, going to Ottawa to fly on a Bell 412 to ensure the sensors they developed can map and figure out location on their own for portions of a flight.
Ravindu Thalagala is one of the PhD students who participated in the Ottawa trip.
“My involvement in the intelligent systems lab team and exposure to cutting-edge drone and navigation sensor technologies has shaped my research path,” says Mr. Thalagala. “The Ottawa field trials that took place at our research
partner’s facilities were pivotal. They were different from our usual research experiments, in that we got to learn air-worthiness standards and do extensive design reviews. Under Dr. De Silva’s guidance, our rigorous testing and development resulted in successful field experiments and the collection of a pioneering navigation dataset. This dataset, accepted for publication in a leading robotics research journal, marks a significant milestone for our lab and my research career. It’s now publicly accessible through the university, standing as one of the initial comprehensive datasets for developing autonomous navigation for full scale aircraft. I view this as an exceptional opportunity, where hands-on experience bridged the gap between theoretical understanding and practical application, expanding the horizons of my research career.”
“It’s an exciting time to be involved,” says Dr. De Silva, explaining that the Intelligent Systems Lab is in its third generation of researchers and has seen several shifts from robot manipulator research, to mobile robot control research, to the current drone technology research. Thanks to funders like NRC, Memorial, and ABS HETC support, as well as NSERC USRA awards, Discovery Grants and NSRC RTI funding for equipment, Dr. De Silva and his team are able to carry out this research. “We have a growing network of close collaborators across Canada; this enables our research to meet the ever-changing needs of the tech sector and secure funding in these areas.”
Dr. Oscar De Silva has been associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Memorial since 2016. He is an expert in instrumentation, controls, and robotics. His current research interests include design of sensors and state estimators to support inspection and autonomous navigation applications.
Dr. De Silva received his B.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, in 2009. He joined the intelligent systems lab of Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) in 2010 as a graduate researcher focused on sensor design, state estimation, and control algorithms for robotic applications.
From 2014 to 2015, he worked as a sessional instructor with the department of Mechanical Engineering teaching subjects related to instrumentation, engineering design, and computer aided engineering.
After completing his doctoral thesis at Memorial in 2015, he worked as a research fellow for the American Bureau of Shipping-Harsh Environment Technology Centre (ABS HETC) developing a computer vision system for detection and tracking of pack ice for use in marine hazard warning and avoidance systems. He has received the IMechE UK award for outstanding achievement, gold medal in mechanical engineering from the University of Moratuwa, recognized as a fellow of MUN school of graduate studies, and an award for exemplary performance as a first-year engineering professor. He currently serves as a lead of the Intelligent Systems Lab (ISL), the faculty lead of Memorial Student Design Hub (SDH), and as the chair of the IEEE Newfoundland and Labrador section.
Dr. Oscar De Silva
Annual Research Day
The Annual Research Poster Day sponsored by the Engineering Research Office and Office of Graduate Studies was held on April 26, 2023. More than 50 graduate students highlighted their research by designing posters that were displayed in the engineering building atrium.
First Place Mohamed Elsayed Mohamed Selim
First place went to Mohamed Selim, a PhD candidate in computer engineering, whose poster, entitled Residual Neural Networks for Learning the Full-Duplex Self-Interference, involved applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to cancel the self-interference (SI) in full-duplex (FD) systems, a key enabler technology for sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks.
Mr. Mohamed approached the research in an innovative fashion, developing a residual neural network (ResNN), a powerful NN used in current ChatGPT, to cancel the interference and enable FD communications using lower computational requirements. This research project sponsored by Huawei Technologies in Ottawa lasted three and a half years.
“The most challenging part of this work is to train the proposed NN model using real-time data,” explained Mr. Mohamed. “In this context, we utilized two public training datasets that were captured using real-time FD testbeds to simulate two different operating scenarios. The proposed NN worked well in both datasets and outperformed the existing benchmarks in the literature. Winning first place in this competition is a significant recognition of our team’s work.”
“I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Octavia Dobre, for her technical and personal support as well as Dr. Ahmed Elbanna, our postdoc fellow, for his help in completing this work. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my wife for their constant love, limitless support, and encouragement throughout my PhD journey.”
Second Place
Yaru Gu
Second place went to Yaru Gu, a PhD candidate in Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, supervised by Dr. Ting Zou. Ms. Gu’s poster, entitled Workspace-based Motion Planning for Quadrupedal Robots on Rough Terrain, covered a ten-month research project supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant and Memorial’s VP Startup Fund.
The research involved motion planning for quadruped robots walking on rough terrain. Instead of first finding a set of footholds, and then adapting the pose of the robot’s body to accommodate the chosen footholds, Ms. Gu approached the research in a reverse fashion developing a “cross-diagonal method’’ to facilitate the robot’s search for new body poses. This, integrated with an elevation mapping module and a state estimation module, enabled the study’s quadrupedal robots to traverse uneven terrains with high efficiency.
“The most thrilling aspect of my project,” explained Ms. Gu, “is witnessing the successful application of my algorithm on an actual robot. In our laboratory, we constructed a complex terrain featuring steps, slopes, and gaps. Furthermore, we ventured around the campus with the robot to encounter various challenging surfaces.”
“Winning second place in this competition is a significant achievement for me,” she adds. “I am deeply grateful for the recognition of our work. This recognition serves as a motivating force, encouraging me to pursue my future research with increased enthusiasm and dedication.”
Third Place
Thakshila Dasun Thilakanayake
Thakshila Thilakanayake’s poster entitled Artificial Intelligence Based Method for Radar Image Super Resolution took third place in the contest. Mr. Thilakanayake is a first year PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics, under the supervision of Drs. Oscar De Silva, Thumeera Wanasinghe and George Mann.
The main contribution of Mr. Thilakanayake’s research, which is collaborative project with Dr. Awantha Jayasiri at the Aerospace Research Centre at the National Research Council Canada in Ottawa, is to allow the VTOL drones to operate and navigate flawlessly in adverse weather conditions such as snow, fog and rain using an AI-based multi modal sensor fusion setup.
In the Intelligent Systems Laboratory (ISL) Mr. Thilakanayake studies vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) employing LiDAR, radar and camera sensors for things like object detection, segmentation, and localization, as well as for odometry and mapping.
“The most challenging aspect of this research is that although LiDAR and camera sensors offer accurate distance measurements and ground target detection, they are susceptible to adverse weather conditions, leading to reduced detection range and misclassification,” says Mr. Thilakanayake. “Also radar sensors are robust in adverse conditions, but their low-resolution 2D-point clouds are insufficient for accurate ground target detection.”
“The poster win means a lot,” says Mr. Thilakanayake. “It is recognition that my research matters and is making a mark. It pushes me to keep going, learn more, and strive for bigger goals in my PhD journey.”
Honourable Mentions
Honorable mentions went to Virajini Nirasha Herath for her poster on Improved Projection-based Point Cloud Semantic Segmentation Approach; and Aylar Abouzarkhanifard for Zero-Power MEMS Resonant Mass Sensor Inspired by Piezoelectric Vibration Energy Harvesting.
Judges
Research Day wouldn’t be possible without the judges who volunteer their time and expertise to choose the winners who take home cash prizes. Many thanks to Drs. Sima Alidokht, Ashutosh Dhar and Yahui Zhang for judging.
Industry Engagement Day
Full day of engagement between academia and industry in Memorial’s innovation hub
Memorial’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science held its second annual Industry Engagement Day at the Emera Innovation Centre on Signal Hill on July 5, 2023. More than 100 members of industry and government met with Memorial researchers to discuss the latest challenges in engineering and come up with possible solutions.
The day involved six plenary and nine break-out sessions in which local companies outlined their current projects and research needs for Memorial engineers. These talks covered everything from sustainable energy solutions to robotics and artificial intelligence. For example, in one break-out
session, Virtual Marine’s Randy Billard discussed the challenges they face in delivering simulation and high-speed navigation training. “We have been successful thanks to the injection of expertise from our partners at Memorial University,” he said.
To round out the day, twelve exhibitors set up pop-up booths to discuss future collaboration between industry and Memorial.
“I am thrilled with the outcome of Industry Engagement Day,” says Dr. Wei Qiu, acting associate dean (research) of the Faculty and one of the organizers of the day. “This is the
second year Memorial has successfully brought together a diverse range of stakeholders, sparking new ideas and partnerships; and laying the groundwork for ongoing collaborations. We hope to see even more participants in 2024.”
The interim dean of engineering agrees. “Industry Engagement Day is an incredible opportunity to find out about the challenges faced by industry,” says Dr. Octavia Dobre. “Inviting industry representatives to explain what they need to our researchers leads to partnerships that wouldn’t have come about if not for Industry Engagement Day.”
Plenary Sessions
Dr. Octavia Dobre, interim dean, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial Dr. Neil Bose, president and vice-chancellor pro tempore, Memorial
We have been successful thanks to the injection of expertise from our partners at Memorial University
— Randy Billard, Virtual Marine
To start off the day, Dr. Octavia Dobre, interim dean, presented an overview of the faculty, which includes 1,300 undergraduate and 900 graduate students guided by 78 faculty members, 10 of whom are on Stanford University’s list of the top 2% of scientists in the world. The study and research programs, which now include mechatronics, AI and process engineering, allow the university to work with industry partners both inside and outside the province.
“We have so much expertise in the faculty and so many facilities that can be used by industry,” said Dr. Dobre. “Between our five departments, seven undergrad and twenty graduate programs, we are leaders in engineering education and research.”
Dr. Dobre also gave an update on the Qanittaq Clean Arctic Shipping project, the largest single funding injection in the university to date. “Memorial will be working with the Inuit Circumpolar Council to resolve shipping challenges in the Arctic and to update the polar code. This project puts Inuit knowledge at the core of managing the Arctic ecosystem.”
Dr. Neil Bose, president and vice-chancellor pro tempore, in his plenary session, reiterated the value of the $91 million injection of research funding with Inuit Circumpolar Council of Canada for cost-efficient resupply in the north. Dr. Bose thanked sponsors, the provincial Department of Industry, Energy and Technology; ACOA; and the Engineering Research Office.
Dr. Bose also discussed Memorial’s efforts in developing future industries in Newfoundland and Labrador, including artificial intelligence (AI).
“Memorial has created a Centre for Artificial Intelligence to help solve complex problems encountered by industry, governments and indigenous organizations,” said Dr. Bose. “Whether you’re an industry or community partner looking to solve a challenge, we’d like to help you; we are your university.”
Gerard Dunphy, VP of Muskrat Falls and Churchill Falls, Newfoundland & Labrador Hydro
Gerard Dunphy, Newfoundland & Labrador Hydro, VP of Muskrat Falls and Churchill Falls, delivered the second plenary session on the future of electricity in Canada, which is expected to deliver a net zero electricity grid by 2035 and a net zero economy by 2050.
“There is an urgency in the electricity sector. There are huge climate goals for Canada in the years ahead, and they are looming closer,” said Mr. Dunphy, adding that electrical generation in Canada in 2019 included 65% renewable resources (60% hydroelectric, 5% wind), 15% uranium (non-carbon-dioxide-emitting), with the rest, carbon and solar power.
Mr. Dunphy gave an overview of Churchill Falls which at 5,400 megawatts, was once the largest hydroelectric project in the world, and pondered what its future will look like after the province’s contract with Quebec expires in 2041.
He then moved on to the much-debated 824-megawatt Muskrat Falls project, which was fully commissioned in April 2023 after ten years of development. Rather than the Francis turbines used in Churchill Falls, Muskrat Falls uses Kaplan turbines, propeller-type water turbines with an adjustable blade.
challenge, as there’s only so much the system can absorb and still remain stable.”
In NL, 92% of energy produced comes from renewable resources, yet in Labrador, seven communities still depend on diesel. Mr. Dunphy explained efforts to change that.
We take power for granted until it fails
— Gerard Dunphy
“We take power for granted until it fails,” said Mr. Dunphy, explaining we need a radical change in our electricity system in order to meet the commitment to decarbonize. He also touched on the Atlantic Loop, a proposed transmission corridor to provide electricity to Nova Scotia via Quebec.
“There will be significant challenges in the electrical industry in the next twenty years,” he said, especially to deal with the added demands on the grid by electric vehicles, home heating and mineral processing. “We need more sources, more transmission and storage. The integration of wind is a
“NL Hydro is controlled by the electric control act, which stipulates we have to supply electricity at the lowest cost,” explained Mr. Dunphy. And in Labrador, the lowest cost is diesel. So, in 2022 the Act was amended to add “in an environmentally responsible manner” which will lead to changes in supplying energy to those remote Labrador communities.
NL Hydro, in partnership with Memorial, is investigating the best ways: to develop hydrogen as a future source of energy; to use green metals in mining processes which means moving away from coal; to ensure stability in the province’s electric system; to increase the system’s ability to absorb wind power; to increase storage, in battery systems and to create small modular reactors.
Charlene Johnson, CEO, Energy NL
Charlene Johnson, former provincial cabinet minister and current CEO of Energy NL, presented a plenary session on the evolution of the Newfoundland and Labrador energy industry including an update on the oil & gas sector, the Atlantic Loop and why NL is at an advantage to supply wind power to the world.
“Newfoundland and Labrador is positioned to be a major provider of lower carbon energy to the world,” said Ms. Johnson, explaining that by harnessing the province’s wind to produce green energy, we can help other countries meet their energy goals while providing Newfoundlanders and Labradorians with thousands of jobs.
Ms. Johnson also spoke about the Net Zero project, which involves carbon capture and storage and the electrification of ports, and said that this province has the potential to store the equivalent of all Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. https://netzeroproject.ca/
Currently, in NL, 92% of power created is hydroelectric, explained Ms. Johnson. The hydroelectricity needed to meet Canadian demand and replace carbon-based sources must have a capacity of four times Churchill Falls.
Stephen O’Brien, senior advisor, Chantier Davie Canada Inc.
Stephen O’Brien, senior advisor, discussed Canada’s shipbuilding strategy and the role played by Chantier Davie,
Canada’s oldest and highest capacity shipyard, in Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy.
Chantier Davie is currently involved in projects equalling $9 billion, explained Mr. O’Brien. They include maintaining six patrol vessels; building six new Program Icebreakers (PIB); two new ferries, both in PEI; as well as a polar icebreaker. “Our aim is to defend Canadian sovereignty,” said Mr. O’Brien.
Chantier Davie has been very busy in 2022; not only are they in the process of acquiring a Helsinki shipyard, but they are also working on noise reduction and are a finalist in the Ecotech Eureka competition for steam boiler/ dock door heating.
Paul Griffin, president and CEO, C-CORE
The final plenary session of the day saw C-CORE’s president and CEO, Paul Griffin, explain C-CORE’s aim to be the leading Canadian innovator in developing technology.
“Our three areas of expertise are remote sensing; ocean and ice engineering; and geotechnical engineering,” said Mr. Griffin. “(Our people) love a challenge; they work from the bottom of the ocean to space, and in 2025, they will celebrate their 50th birthday.”
As a separately-incorporated entity, like Genesis, C-CORE is self-funded. Although there is no ongoing funding from government or Memorial, C-CORE still represents thirteen per cent of Memorial’s R&D portfolio, has eighty-five staff in St. John’s and Ottawa, and has hosted over 1,400 students to date.
“We have excellent combined facilities between Memorial’s labs, C-CORE, NRC’s towing and ice tanks, Marine Institute’s The Launch in Holyrood,” said Mr. Griffin, who explains C-CORE is involved in diverse projects including Virtual Marine’s simulation and digital twins of platforms and ships; LookNorth which was established in 2011 to commercialize in the north; Smart Ice Management System (SIMS) which provides real-time high-res iceberg profiles and iceberg drift prediction; as well as operating satellites which can detect oil spills, map wetlands and land cover, monitor and track methane emissions, detect plumes, conduct maritime surveillance, including the ability to track ships via location beacons and determine biomass from tree trunks.
The MetaKettle on Simmer
Reflections from my Career at MUN
By Cecilia Moloney Honorary Research Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Memorial University
ECE Through the Decades
Research is always working at the edges of what we know, and what we know has changed enormously over my career. Since my time as a graduate student, growth in my technical research field of non-linear image and signal processing has been rapid and substantial, from early methods of edge-preserving noise smoothing based on Gaussian filters to enable differential processing across frequency bands, through time-frequency based methods via wavelets, anisotropic diffusion, and non-local means, and on to generalizations of scalespace via deep learning — to name just a few developments in methods, to say nothing of the many applications these methods have enabled. As well, the questions we have been able to answer have changed in proportion to developments in computing, transmission and display technologies.
The papers I wrote in 1990 now seem simplistic in their details, yet still reflect the on-going and fundamental desire to answer questions about how we extract meaning from signals. But the specific questions that we ask now are different, partly due to changes in where the front edge of engineering knowledge is, partly due to where our students are, and partly due to changes in how research is funded and other broad changes in Canadian society and the global economy. My career as a university professor has shown me the need to be adept in navigating change, as well as humble in listening to discern the emerging and changing questions that I can pose and try to answer.
Empowering Women in Science and Engineering
My career at Memorial University (MUN) began in the fall of 1990 when I joined the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (FEAS) as an assistant professor. I remember my first academic year of 1990–1991 with great clarity — from the interview in June through my first courses, applying for my first NSERC grants and starting to supervise my first graduate student. I also recall the congratulations I received on being appointed as the first woman professor of engineering at Memorial.
In the late 20th century, when I was a graduate student and when I started my career as a professor of engineering, the rates of women studying and working in fields of engineering and many of the natural sciences were starting to nudge up but still remained well below parity. Many individuals and organizations sought to accelerate change through various programs. For a local example, Women in Science and Engineering Newfoundland and Labrador (WISE NL) started the Summer Student Employment Program (SSEP) in 1990 to provide high school girls with transformative paid summer experiences as Research Assistants in science
Dr. Cecilia Moloney
or engineering. Nationally, in 1989 the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) initiated a program of Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering (CWSE), that was expanded in 1997 to 5 regional Chairs. I held the Atlantic Region CWSE for the 5-year term of 2004–2009, during which I worked intensely, in collaboration with many others, both at Memorial and elsewhere; I mention in particular Caroline Koenig of FEAS with whom I worked closely for over 4 years when she was the Professional Assistant of the Chair. Together, we devised and rolled out an ambitious strategy and suite of programs for our term of the CWSE-Atlantic (CWSEA).
NSERC’s main mandate for the CWSE was the development, implementation and communication of strategies to raise the level of participation of women in science and engineering. During my work as the chair, and in large part as a direct result of a collaborative research project with others across Canada that was initiated by Dr. Valerie Davidson, the Ontario region CWSE 2003–2011, I developed a deeper interest in pedagogy as a key factor in encouraging women (or anyone) to pursue further studies and careers in engineering and the natural sciences. As a result, in 2010, in collaboration with Dr. Janna Rosales of FEAS, I started the MetaKettle Project as a legacy pedagogy project from the CWSEA, to develop and support innovative approaches and methods for teaching in science and engineering, and especially methods that may lead to increased diversity within these fields.
One of the initial goals of the MetaKettle Project was that it result in conversation and collaboration among those at the university who are interested in science and engineering pedagogy; in this goal I believe we were successful in contributing to a new conversation and new initiatives on-campus. A more ambitious goal was that the MetaKettle Project influence operational programs at MUN; success on this goal was modest but encouraging; now I hand this objective over to my colleagues who continue at MUN and elsewhere.
The science and engineering landscape has changed since 1990, with many more women participating in science and engineering (S&E), and with an enhanced understanding of the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), generally and in S&E. While the changes often show gains, there is still much more to accomplish.
Shaping the Future
During the CWSEA years 2004–2009 I was genuinely puzzled by how one Chair, working part-time, with a mandate to an entire region of the country, could be expected to make a measurable difference in the rates of women’s participation in that region, across all disciplines of S&E and across all age, educational and workplace groups. It would have been easy to be discouraged — and sometimes I was. Given the size of the task, sometimes the best approach was simply to start initiatives, anticipating that the efforts would have impact. In my case, I started with the fundamental question, Who is the scientist or engineer? This question animated much of the programming I developed in the CWSEA with Caroline Koenig and with students and other collaborators. It also started me on a line of philosophical inquiry that
resulted in a large growth in my understanding, as well as in material outcomes in the form of workshops I developed and facilitated and papers I wrote or presented, as contributions variously to the scholarship of teaching and learning or the emerging field of the philosophy of engineering. I continue to work on projects in these fields.
A key question the MetaKettle Projects asks might be posed as follows: What changes to the way we teach science and engineering will attract a more diverse student body, and lead to their increased engagement and success throughout their careers? The changes might orient students better to attend to data, to question, to wonder, to reflect and be sure of their insights, to take action based on clearly articulated values, to lead themselves and others; such changes can be enabled and fostered via educational and social innovation frameworks based on problem-solving, design thinking, dialogue, service-based learning, global citizenship, etc. Bearing in mind that the careers of current undergraduate students in 2024 might extend to 2060 or beyond, and their lives potentially to 2100, it is clear that our students will need to manage change. For this they will need to be nimble and adept, both technically and with process skills. Key will be their capacity to learn and change. And thus, what pedagogy crucially needs now is to be oriented towards who the student is as much as towards the content the student is learning, as much towards their why in seeking to be engineers or scientists as in how they conduct their work. We attempted to encapsulate this perspective of education in the MetaKettle Project.
You may be wondering why we chose the name MetaKettle for the project? In the summary of the MetaKettle Project on MUN’s Yaffle repository, we wrote: “The name MetaKettle starts with the simple, everyday kettle, an enduring design and artefact from antiquity, symbolic of human productivity and ingenuity and of the natural bent of human beings towards discovery. Kettles are eminently practical for producing the steaming mugs of tea or coffee over which ideas are discussed and relationships formed within communities. While kettles represent the work of science or engineering, i.e. the product of engineering and the content of science, the MetaKettle is the whole in the Kettle, i.e. the person who is the engineer or scientist. Thus,
the MetaKettle Project is intent upon brewing big picture thinking about science and engineering education. This includes critically reflecting on the “what” and “how” of engineering and science, as well as the dynamic “who” and “why” of the person who aspires to be an engineer or scientist.”
As I start retirement as an Honorary Research Professor, I am maintaining my interests that have emerged from threads woven throughout my career (both those summarized above, as well as other rich threads that are not mentioned due to space limitations.) In recent years some threads started to converge, and I was pleased to find ways to combine the aspirations and goals of the MetaKettle Project with my love for signal processing and related areas of ECE through a deeper examination of what it means to be a problem solver. My academic career has involved teaching problem-solving-rich courses in engineering. Over time there emerged a personal quandary of how to make sense of my attempts to teach problem solving, both the successes and failures, and how potentially to leave a legacy based on my experiences. I have long sought to understand the students I have interacted with – including the student I myself was – and notably to understand something of their self-understanding as problem solvers. Throughout my career, I have tried (to paraphrase the famous educator and mathematician G. Polya) to “entice” students to do problems, and to think about what they were doing as they solved problems. As a distillation of some of my career experiences and insights, I have developed and given various workshops on problem solving, which I have expanded into a curriculum for a special topics course on critical perspectives on methods of problem solving.
Although I no longer have students in classes to entice into problem solving, I am still working on what it means to be an engineering problem-solver. Since solving problems often involves making decisions —from the most efficient method to choose at any given point in a solution, up to much more significant design decisions in the face of ill-defined or “wicked” problems, including life and career decisions— I am also working on what it means to be an engineering decision maker. As such I am working on the roots of an ethics in engineering, where “ethics” is understood as everything that an engineer does, based on all they bring to the tasks of designing, constructing and maintaining a safe built world in which humans and all who share the planet with us may have rich and successful lives. Engineering viewed this way is a huge challenge, one that requires change in how we think about and educate for engineering in the complex and changing world of the 21st century. I am keen to continue to contribute to such questions. I welcome your feedback and discussion, should anyone be interested in chatting.
With thanks to all who contributed to my career and to what I have learned: my students and colleagues, at Memorial and elsewhere; my teachers and mentors; my family and friends.
the MetaKettle Project is intent upon brewing big picture thinking about science and engineering education. This includes critically reflecting on the “what” and “how” of engineering and science, as well as the dynamic “who” and “why” of the person who aspires to be an engineer or scientist.
Blowing Towards Sustainability
Harnessing Newfoundland and Labrador’s Wind Power Potential
By Dr. Kevin Pope Professor of Energy Systems Engineering –Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering
Since 2010, the cost of onshore wind power has dropped by over 70% and is now more than 50% cheaper than the most cost-effective fossil fuel-fired option. Given these significant cost reductions, along with the Canadian and global aim to decarbonize the energy sector, we are seeing wind turbine installations expand rapidly and the pace of development is increasing at an impressive rate.
Our unique geographical location also presents a promising future for offshore wind power in this province. Since 2010, the cost of offshore wind has dropped by 240%. The federal and provincial governments have agreed to allow our province more revenue and regulatory authority for offshore wind turbines within Newfoundland’s 16 large bays. A Committee for Regional Assessment of Offshore Wind Development in NL was formed with important work and engagement ongoing. Floating offshore wind turbines have made significant progress in recent years, and National Renewable Energy Laboratory predicts an additional 70% cost reduction by 2035. These systems will be ideal options for electrifying the industries near-shore and offshore Newfoundland and Labrador and contributing to Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan.
Linked with decarbonizing our electricity supply and industries, we are also electrifying significant amounts of our energy consumption. The electric vehicle is one example. However, there are many uses whereby electrification is not the most viable option. For instance, energy intensive industries: steel, cement and fertilizer production; as well as long distance transportation: rail, shipping and aviation still require a sustainable energy source. I see hydrogen as a key component for these energy intensive processes.
Dr. Kevin Pope
Although grey hydrogen, which requires conversion of carbon containing fossil fuels, has been used commercially to generate hydrogen for some of these processes, I see green hydrogen as a more viable and sustainable way forward.
The outlook for wind to hydrogen projects in this province is very positive. Especially since the signing of the Canada / Germany Hydrogen Alliance and the recent Canada / German memorandum of understanding, whereby Canada will begin exporting green hydrogen produced by wind turbines to Germany as soon as 2025. Canada also co-led the development of the Hydrogen Initiative, which is an international cooperation that aims to advance the hydrogen economy and enable the utilisation of hydrogen for clean energy systems.
Several large-scale projects, such as the EverWind NL Company, Exploits Valley Renewable Energy Corporation, Toqlukuti’k Wind and Hydrogen Ltd. (ABO), World Energy GH2 Inc‘s Project Nujio’qonik and Pattern Energy’s Argentia Renewables, are advancing and have the potential to provide wonderful opportunities for NL to make meaningful contributions to a more sustainable future. These projects are expected to lead to cutting edge advancement that will allow our province to become a world leader in wind to hydrogen technology. The expertise developed during these projects will be in high demand as wind to hydrogen projects continue to be exponentially adopted around the world. The research and development associated with these projects will have transformative impacts on the green energy transition, future markets and our province.
The rapid pace of the green transition and the magnitude of the associated green energy projects will have vast impacts on the province. The large-scale installations that are advancing in Newfoundland and Labrador are on track to be world leading projects. Memorial University will play an important role in fostering collaboration between stakeholders, conducting valuable research, and training the talented people for these projects. At Memorial, our research is advancing wind turbine engineering principles, including those needed for operation in harsh environments. We are improving clean hydrogen production technologies, such as electrochemical hydrogen, thermochemical hydrogen and electrochemical ammonia production. Our research is improving the integration of these various systems in ways that can be optimized for better efficiency, reliability and safety. We are also constructing a new climatic wind tunnel with integrated wave tank abilities that will provide great opportunities for more world-leading wind power research.
Realizing the full potential of wind energy and clean hydrogen products requires strategic planning and decisive action. Government support, private sector investment, and academic research must converge to drive this transition forward.
We need policies that incentivize renewable energy development, funding mechanisms that facilitate infrastructure investment, and research initiatives that push the boundaries of technological innovation.
We must also prioritize community engagement and ensure that the outcomes of this energy transition benefit all people of NL. By involving local communities in the decision-making process and fostering partnerships with Indigenous groups, we can build a more inclusive and sustainable system for future generations.
Newfoundland and Labrador indeed are very windy, but beyond this we also possess other significant synergies for wind to hydrogen success in this province. We have a strong energy sector and we are continuing our progression to clean electricity infrastructure, powered by hydroelectricity. We have an abundance of land, fresh water, ports, a convenient shipping location, and talented, hard-working people. The future of wind power in NL is very bright.
Awards and Accomplishments
Faculty
Ashraf Ali Khan
• Awarded, Best Paper, Newfoundland Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference
Baiyu Zhang
• Appointed, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada
Bing Chen
• Appointed, President-elect, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
• Recognition, Editorial Excellence, Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Systems Research
Joseph Daraio
• Appointed, Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering
Janna Rosales
• Awarded, Best Paper, American Society For Engineering Education conference
Octavia Dobre
• Awarded, Outstanding Achievement Award, IEEE Women in Communications Engineering
• Awarded, Stars in Networking and Communications, IEEE N2 Women
• Awarded, Best Paper Award, International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference 2023
• Recognition, Exemplary Editor, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials
Trung Doung
• Appointed, Canada Excellence Research Chair
• Awarded, Best Paper Award, IEEE International Workshop on Computer Aided Modeling and Design of Communication Links and Networks
Yuri Muzychka
• Appointed, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Students
Dalia Ibrahim
• Appointed, Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies
Guihua Dong
• Awarded, Best Online Presentation Award, PEOPLE 2023 conference
Hamed Nasiri
• Awarded, Gold Leaf Certificate, PhD Research in Microelectronics and Electronics conference
Lee Britton
• Awarded, International Oil Spill Conference Travel Award
Min Yang
• Awarded, Best Presentation Award, PEOPLE 2023 conference
Mojtaba Zarea
• Awarded, Best Poster, Aldrich Multidisciplinary conference
Qiao Kang
• Awarded, Best Online Presentation Award, PEOPLE 2023 conference
• Member, NSERC Research Tools and Instrumentation Selection Committee: Mechanical Engineering
Yuri Muzychka
• Associate Editor, AIAA Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer
Xili Duan
• Chair, NSERC Scholarships and Fellowships Selection Committee: Mechanical Engineering
• Associate Editor, Transactions of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering
Oceans and Naval Architecture Engineering
Bruce Quinton
• Associate Editor, Journal of Ships and Offshore Structures
• Technical member, NATO S&T Organization Applied Vehicle Technology Panel
David Molyneux
• Co-Editor, Journal of Ocean Technology
Kelly Hawboldt
• Member, Banting Scholarship Review Committee
• Member, NSERC Alliance review committee
Syed Imtiaz
• Member, Banting Scholarship Review Committee
Salim Ahmed
• Associate Editor, Control Engineering Practice
Stephen Butt
• Member, NSERC Alliance Review Committee
• Member, NSERC Research Tools and Instrumentation Selection Committee: Civil, Industrial and Systems Engineering
350 Active grants
New applications
10 Researchers recognized on the world’s top 2% scientist 2023 list
Publications
Energy
A Comprehensive Review of Emission Reduction Technologies for Marine Transportation. Huang, J.; Duan, X.
Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy 2023, 15 (3).
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0150010
A Novel Rate of Penetration Prediction Model for Large Diameter Drilling: An Approach Based on TBM and RBM Applications. J. de Moura; Yang, J.; Butt, S. D.
Journal of Mining Science 2023, 59 (1), 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1134/s1062739123010088
Adsorption of CO2 Using Biochar - Review of the Impact of Gas Mixtures and Water on Adsorption.
Ghanbarpour Mamaghani, Z.; Hawboldt, K. A.; MacQuarrie, S. Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2023, 11 (3), 109643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2023.109643
Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Heat Transfer and Flow Phenomena in Taylor Flow through a Straight Mini-Channel. Amin Etminan; Muzychka, Y.; Pope, K. ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 2023, 145 (8). https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4062175
Integrating Process Dynamics in Data-Driven Models of Chemical Processing Systems.
Alauddin, M.; Khan, F.; Imtiaz, S.; Ahmed, S.; Amyotte, P. Process Safety and Environmental Protection 2023, 174, 158–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2023.04.008
Screening of Waterflooding Using Smart Proxy Model Coupled with Deep Convolutional Neural Network.
Bahrami, P.; James, L. A. Geoenergy Science and Engineering 2023, 221, 111300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2022.111300
Steam and Supercritical Water Gasification of Densified Canola Meal Fuel Pellets
Azargohar, R.; Nanda, S.; Borugadda, V. B.; Cheng, H.; Bond, T.; Karunakaran, C.; Dalai, A. K.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 2021, 47 (100). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.09.134
Ocean Technology
An Operational Risk Awareness Tool for Small Fishing Vessels Operating in Harsh Environment.
Domeh, V.; Obeng, F.; Khan, F.; Bose, N.; Sanli, E. Reliability Engineering & System Safety 2023, 234, 109139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2023.109139
Top view of the fabricated Bistable Piezoelectric MEMS Energy Harvester
FEM-Inclusive Transfer Learning for Bistable Piezoelectric MEMS Energy Harvester Design.
Aylar Abouzarkhanifard; Hamidreza Ehsani Chimeh; Mohammad Al Janaideh; Zhang, L.
Lande Andrade, S.; Elruby, A. Y.; Hipditch, E.; Daley, C. G.; Quinton, B. W. T.
Ships and Offshore Structures 2022, 18 (4), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445302.2022.2032993
Ice Pressure Distribution Model: A Geometry-Based Solution for High-Pressure Zone Representation.
Andrade, S. L.; Colbourne, B.; Gagnon, R.; Quinton, B. W. Cold Regions Science and Technology 2023, 210, 103822. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2023.103822
Pathfinding and Optimization for Vessels in Ice: A Literature Review.
Tran, T. T.; Browne, T.; Musharraf, M; Veitch, B. Cold Regions Science and Technology 2023, 211, 103876–103876. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2023.103876
Maritime Search and Rescue in Canada and the Use of Emergency Radio Beacons.
Route Optimization for Vessels in Ice: Investigating Operational Implications of the Carbon Intensity Indicator Regulation. Tran, T. T.; Browne, T.; Veitch, B.; Musharraf, M.; Peters, D. Marine Policy 2023, 158, 105858. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2023.105858.
Sea-Ice Classification Using Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks
Sea-Ice Classification Using Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks.
Alsharay, N. M.; Dobre, O. A.; Chen, Y.; De Silva, O. IEEE sensors letters 2023, 7 (4), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1109/lsens.2023.3259202
Torsional Vibrations of Polar-Class Shaftlines: Correlating Ice–Propeller Interaction Torque to Sea Ice Thickness. Zambon, A.; Moro, L.; Kennedy, A.; Oldford, D. Ocean Engineering 2023, 267, 113250–113250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.113250
Information and Communication Technology
A Blockchain and Stacked Machine Learning Approach for Malicious Nodes’ Detection in Internet of Things. Baig, S. M.; Javed, M. U.; Almogren, A.; Javaid, N.; Jamil, M. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications 2023, 16 (6), 2811–2832. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-023-01554-1
Blind Auditing and Probabilistic Access Controls
Arastoo Bozorgi; Anderson, J. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2023, 14186, 257–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43033-6_25
Combining ERA5 Data and CYGNSS Observations for the Joint Retrieval of Global Significant Wave Height of Ocean Swell and Wind Wave: A Deep Convolutional Neural Network Approach
Bu, J.; Yu, K.; Ni, J.; Huang, W. Journal of Geodesy 2023, 97 (8). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00190-023-01768-4
Blind Time-Domain Motion Compensation for Synthetic Doppler Spectra Obtained from an HF-Radar on a Floating Platform. Hashemi, S.; Shahidi, R.; Gill, E. W. IET Radar, Sonar & Navigation 2022, 17 (4), 571–578. https://doi.org/10.1049/rsn2.12361
Computationally Efficient Stability-Based Nonlinear Model Predictive Control Design for Quadrotor Aerial Vehicles. Gomaa, M. A. K.; De Silva, O; Mann, G.; Gosine, R. G. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems and Technology 2023, 31 (2), 615–630.
https://doi.org/10.1109/tcst.2022.3188399
Point Cloud Completion in Challenging Indoor Scenarios with Human Motion.
Zhang, C.; Czarnuch, S. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 2023, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1184614
RIS-Assisted Visible Light Communication Systems: A Tutorial. Aboagye, S.; Ndjiongue, A. R.; Telex M. N. Ngatched; Dobre, O. A.; H. Vincent Poor.
IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials 2022, 25 (1), 251–288. https://doi.org/10.1109/comst.2022.3225859
Single-Phase Direct PWM Bipolar Buck–Boost AC–AC Converter without Commutation Problem.
Ahmed, H. F; Khan, A. A.;Abdoli, I; Alzaabi, O. IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics 2023, 11 (6), 5940–5953.
https://doi.org/10.1109/jestpe.2023.3323990
The Swarm within the Labyrinth: Planar Construction by a Robot Swarm.
Vardy, A.
Artificial Life and Robotics 2023, 28 (1), 117–126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-022-00849-5
Environment and Sustainable Infrastructure
A Critical Review on the Interaction of Polymer Particles and Co-Existing Contaminants: Adsorption Mechanism, Exposure Factors, Effects on Plankton Species.
Xin, X.; Chen, B.; Yang, M.; Gao, S.; Wang, H.; Gu, W.; Li, X.; Zhang, B. Journal of Hazardous Materials 2023, 445, 130463. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.130463
A UVA light-emitting diode microreactor for the photocatalytic degradation of humic acids and the control of disinfection by-products formation potential
A UVA Light-Emitting Diode Microreactor for the Photocatalytic Degradation of Humic Acids and the Control of Disinfection By-Products Formation Potential.
Liu, B.; Zhang, B.; Dong, G.; Wu, F.; Chen, B.
Journal of Cleaner Production 2023, 429, 139395. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.139395
Dependency Effect on the Reliability-Based Design Optimization of Complex Offshore Structure
Okoro, A.; Khan, F.; Ahmed, S. Reliability Engineering & System Safety 2023, 231, 109026. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2022.109026
Drained Cyclic Behaviour and State-Dependent Stress–Dilatancy Relationship of Sand in Direct Simple Shear Tests.
Al Tarhouni, M. A.; Hawlader, B. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 2023, 168, 107801. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2023.107801
Experimental Investigation on the Tensile Strength of Freshwater Freeze-Bonds.
Afzali, S.; Taylor, R.; Sarracino, R. Cold Regions Science and Technology 2023, 210, 103823–103823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2023.103823
Investigation of Trench Effect on Fatigue Response of Steel Catenary Risers Using an Effective Stress Analysis. Hossein Janbazi; Hodjat Shiri. Computers and Geotechnics 2023, 160, 105506–105506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2023.105506
Performance of Stalite Lightweight SCC Beam-Column Joints under Reversed Cyclic Loading.
Omar, A. T.; AbdelAleem, B. H.; Assem A.A. Hassan. Engineering Structures 2023, 288, 116182–116182. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2023.116182
Predicting Pavement Condition Index Based on the Utilization of Machine Learning Techniques: A Case Study.
Ali, A.; Milad, A.; Hussein, A.; Nur; Heneash, U. Journal of road engineering 2023, 3 (3), 266–278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jreng.2023.04.002
Reliability Assessment of Pipelines Crossing Strike-Slip Faults Considering Modeling Uncertainties Using ANN Models. Phan, H. C.; Dhar, A. S.; Bui, N. D. Reliability Engineering & System Safety 2023, 237, 109371–109371. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2023.109371
Photo of a reduced (dumbbell shape) sample after failure
Room and Elevated Temperature Sliding Wear of High Velocity Oxy-Fuel Sprayed Diamalloy3001 Coatings
Munagala, V. N. V.; Alidokht, S. A.; Sharifi, N.; Makowiec, M. E.; Stoyanov, P.; Moreau, C.; Chromik, R. R. Tribology International 2023, 178, 108069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.triboint.2022.108069
Other/Emerging Areas of Importance
Critical Path Planning for Discharging Older Adults Using a Functional Perspective.
Salehi, V.; Veitch, B.; Smith, D.
Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries 2023, 33 (4), 312–326. https://doi.org/10.1002/hfm.20985
EEG-Based Detection of Modality-Specific Visual and Auditory Sensory Processing.
Faghihe Massaeli; Bagheri, M.; Power, S. D. Journal of Neural Engineering 2023, 20 (1), 016049–016049. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/acb9be
Establishing a Best Practice for SDTrimSP Simulations of Solar Wind Ion Sputtering.
Morrissey, L. S.; Schaible, M. J.; Tucker, O. J.; Szabo, P. S.; Bacon, G.; Killen, R. M.; Savin, D. W.
The Planetary Science Journal 2023, 4 (4), 67. https://doi.org/10.3847/psj/acc587
Evolution of Air Plastron Thickness and Slip Length over Superhydrophobic Surfaces in Taylor Couette Flows.
Faraj, A.; Duan, X.; Muzychka, Y. S. Fluids 2023, 8 (4), 133–133. https://doi.org/10.3390/fluids8040133
Dynamic Bayesian Network Model to Study Under-Deposit Corrosion.
Dao, U.; Sajid, Z.; Khan, F.; Zhang, Y. Reliability Engineering & System Safety 2023, 237, 109370–109370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ress.2023.109370
Dynamic Modeling and Nonlinear Oscillations of a Rotating Pendulum with a Spinning Tip Mass.
Al-Solihat, M. K.; Mohammad Al Janaideh. Journal of Sound and Vibration 2023, 548, 117485–117485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsv.2022.117485
Multiphysics CFD Modeling to Assess Performance of a Perforated Multi-Plate Indirect Solar Dryer with a V-Corrugated Absorber Surface.
Avargani, V. M.; Maarof, H. A.; Zendehboudi.S Applied Thermal Engineering 2023, 227, 120387–120387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2023.120387
Photo of the solar dryer tested in experimentations with various components
Photocatalytic Degradation of Cefotaxime Pharmaceutical Compounds onto a Modified Nanocatalyst.
Abbood, N. S.; Ali, N. S.; Khader, E. H.; Hasan. Sh. Majdi; Albayati, T. M.; Saady, N. Research on Chemical Intermediates 2022, 49 (1), 43–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11164-022-04879-3
Selective Detection of Nitenpyram by Silica-Supported Carbon Quantum Dots.
Rostami, M.; Zhang, B.; Zhang, Y. Spectrochimica Acta Part A: Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy 2023, 292, 122387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2023.122387
Workspace-Based Motion Planning for Quadrupedal Robots on Rough Terrain.
Gu, Y.; Zou, T.
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics 2023, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1109/tie.2023.3329255
Partners
We would like to extend our gratitude to our Federal and Provincial Governments, and industry partners. The meaningful work within our faculty would not be possible without your support, participation and close collaboration.
• Actua Canada
• Advanced Cert Canada Inc.
• Airntell Aerospace Inc.
• Ambassade de France
• American Bureau of Shipping
• Andes VR
• Association of Public Safety Communications Officials Canada
• Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
• Atterix
• BAE Systems Technology Solutions
• Bombardier Inc.
• Cahill Group
• Canada First Research Excellence Fund
• Canada Foundation for Innovation
• Canada Research Chairs
• Canadian Institute for Advanced Research
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• Canadian Microelectronics
• Canadian Space Agency
• CanaGas Inc.
• C-CORE
• Chevron Canada Ltd.
• City of St. Johns
• CNERGreen
• Conservation Corps Newfoundland and Labrador
• Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Ltd.
• CORSpher
• Defence Research and Development Canada
• Department of National Defence
• Dominis Engineering
• D-TA Systems Inc.
• Eastern Health
• Emera
• Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador
• Energy, Matter & Enivronmental Consultants Inc.
• Environment and Climate Change Canada
• Equinor
• Ever Green Recycling
• ExxonMobil Canada Ltd.
• ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada
• FortisBC Energy Inc.
• Genome Alberta
• Genome Canada
• Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
• Graphite Innovation & Technologies Inc.
• Hibernia Management & Development Company Ltd.
• Hurd Solutions Inc.
• Husky Energy
• Imperial Oil Ltd.
• INTECSEA Canada
• Kværner
• Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust
• M. A. Procense
• Manitoba Hydro
• Marine Institute
• Memorial Centre For Entrepreneurship
• Mitacs
• Nalcor Energy
• National Research Council – Institute for Aerospace Research
• National Research Council of Canada
• Natural Resources Canada
• Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
• Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Applied Health Research
• Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture
• Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro
• Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association
• Northern Crescent Inc.
• Novamera Inc.
• Nunavut Fisheries Association
• Ocean Frontier Institute
• Orcinus Technologies Inc.
• Owlya
• Petro-Canada Exploration Inc.
• Power HV Inc.
• Praxes Medical Group
• Provincial Aerospace Ltd.
• Public Health Agency of Canada
• qualiTEAS Inc.
• SaskEnergy
• Sexton Lumber Co. Ltd.
• Standards Council of Canada
• Suncor Energy Inc.
• TechnipFMC
• Town of Pouch Cove
• Transport Canada
• VARD Marine Inc.
• Verafin
• Virtual Marine Technology Inc.
• Wood Group Canada Inc.
• WSP Canada Inc.
• Yashiltech
• Zol Dynamics Inc.
Coming in 2025
Harsh Environments Research Facility Building Near Completion, Opening in 2025
The Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science’s new Harsh Environment Research Facility (HERF) nears completion. The HERF will house special purpose built equipment for conducting research in ice/structure interactions, ocean surface wind/wave interactions with floating or fixed marine structures, and ice mechanics and materials testing. The research facilities include a large cold room, a unique wind tunnel with wave generating basin which also enables atmospheric icing studies, a large load frame testing apparatus, and equipment for creating ocean ice conditions. HERF is expected to be fully commissioned by late 2025. It is a partnership between CFI, ACOA, the NL Government, Cenovus Energy, and Memorial University.
C-CORE to Celebrate 50 Years of Research and Collaboration in 2025
C-CORE was formed in 1975 to support resource development in Newfoundland & Labrador through collaborative research & development activities. Almost 50 years on, the organization is recognized nationally and internationally for providing innovative solutions to its industry and government clients in the remote sensing, space, defense, oceans and energy sectors. Collaboration continues to be key to C-CORE’s success, and working with Memorial researchers is a regular feature of the organization’s activities. Recent and emerging business opportunities in maritime surveillance, space systems, renewable energy and climate change monitoring, among others, will see the organization’s capabilities continue to grow. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and big data management will continue to develop and evolve within C-CORE as the organization pursues solutions to complex challenges faced by its clients.
Memorial University is excited to be hosting the International Conference on Port and Ocean Engineering under Arctic Conditions 2025 in St. John’s, NL from July 13 – 17, 2025. The objective of POAC’25 is to provide an engaging forum for the discussion and exchange of ideas regarding the latest research, field experience and technological innovations for ice, ocean and polar science and engineering applications. Please visit us at www.poac2025.com for more information.
The Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science’s new Harsh Environment Research Facility nears completion, Facility Opening in 2025
