Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science | Research Report 2023

Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science

Partnership Enabled Research

Major Highlights

Wei Qiu, with partners—Canada

First Excellence Research Fund: Qanittaq Clean Arctic Shipping

$91,600,000

Baiyu Helen Zhang—Canada

Research Chair: Coastal Environmental Engineering

$500,000

Sohrab Zendehboudi—

New Frontiers in Research

Fund Exploration Grant: Decarbonization Strategy through Bio-hydrogen

Production from Brown Algae

$250,000

Bipul Hawlader, with partners

Northern Crescent Inc. and Mitacs

—NSERC Alliance Grant: Buried

Pipelines in Sloping Ground and Potential Buckling during Operation

$164,000

Stephen Czarnuch—Public Heath

Agency of Canada: Advancing Peer Support Programming to address PTSD and trauma among Canadian Public Safety Personnel and Veterans

$212,820

MAJOR HIGH LIGHTS

Front cover caption: Riding the waves of knowledge: MUN researchers at the 200 m long NRC towing tank.

Pictured in photo left to right: Graduate students Liam Gregory, Shanqin Jin, Dr. Heather Peng, graduate students Adwaith Nath, Emre Cilkaya and Dr. Ayhan Akinturk.

Dean’s Message

This is an exciting time for Engineering research! As Interim Dean, I am delighted to see several major and innovative ongoing projects, and others which are just about to start. We anticipate more opportunities, and welcome new partmerships with industry and collaborations with academic colleagues.

In the report, we provide a glimpse of the extraordinary, creative and impactful research led by our faculty members in all areas: civil, computer, electrical, mechanical, ocean and naval architecture, and process engineering.

It was an exceptional year: the $91.6 M Canada First Excellence Research Fund Qanittaq – Clean Arctic Shipping project, with strong leadership and participation from Engineering, has been awarded; the Canada Research Chair Tier 2 on Coastal Environment Engineering has been renewed; and our faculty members have secured over $14.7M

in research funding from federal, regional and provincial funding agencies, as well as industry. The success in the NSERC RTI and CFI competitions has enabled the development of state-of-the-art laboratories, such that the ones on radar for ocean remote sensing and pollution control.

Faculty members and their trainees published over 400 peer-reviewed papers, which tremendeously contribute to the body of knowledge and technology advancement. Our exceptional colleagues have been acknowledged through numerous awards and distinctions, such as Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, Chalmers Jubilee Professor, and University Research Professor. Eleven have been recognized as World’s Top 2% Scientists in their respective fields of research, compiled by Stanford University.

2023 Octavia A. Dobre

In the following pages, you will read about the research accomplishments of our faculty members and their trainees. We are proud of their achievements and hope that you will enjoy reading this report.

If you are interested in a particular area of research, our faculty members will be more than happy to meet and discuss with you. I would also like to invite you explore our website to learn more about the impressive accomplishments of our colleagues and students.

“This is an exciting time for Engineering research!”

— Octavia A. Dobre

Message from the Associate Dean of Research

The Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (FEAS) is home to excellent researchers residing in the departments of civil, electrical and computer, mechanical and mechatronics, ocean and naval architectural and process engineering.

Through strong partnerships with industry and government, the faculty continues excelling in research and innovation in the areas of energy, ocean technology, information and communication technology, environment and sustainable infrastructure and other emerging areas of importance.

The Faculty’s 2023 Research Report highlights the research excellence of faculty and students in our strategic areas. It also celebrates their significant contributions nationally and internationally in terms of innovation, new knowledge to fields, problem-solving and technology development to support industry and dedicated professional services to the community.

You will read about how Dr. Bruce Quinton and his team are assessing the capabilities of low- and non-

ice-class ships needed to operate in ice-covered areas. In partnership with Vard Marine, American Bureau of Shipping, the Royal Canadian Navy and the NATO, Dr. Quinton aims to make the Arctic a safer place.

Drs. Helen Zhang and Bing Chen continue working with their partners to mitigate ocean and coastal pollution, and Dr. Sam Nakhla dedicates his research to the study of aging, degrading and failing structures in harsh and extreme environments, in collaboration with NASA, Bombardier, Suncor and many other partners.

Our researchers have advanced in various areas and continue contributing to the wellness of people, the Newfoundland and Labrador economy and Canada’s Blue Economy.

Dr. Sarah Power is developing brain-computer interfaces to help non-verbal people. One of our newest faculty members, Dr. Cui Lin, is developing a new rock stress measurement technology for underground excavations to improve safe and sustainable mining.

2023 Wei Qiu

The faculty values partnerships and support from industry, government and funding agencies, which make innovation possible. In 2022, federal and provincial governments and industries provided our researchers with approximately $14.7 million for more than 270 grants and contracts to support research and laboratory development.

Collaborations with our partners have led to more opportunities to address challenging issues faced by national and international communities.

A national network, CISMaRT, led by the Department of Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering and consisting of over 55 industry, government and academia members, has paved the way to the successful application of the Qanittaq Clean Arctic Shipping Initiative.

With the support of $91.6 million from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund over seven years, the project, which is co-led by Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada and Memorial University, aims to make trans -

formational changes in safe and sustainable shipping in Arctic waters, supporting and sustaining Northern and Inuit communities.

The Qanittaq initiative involves almost 50 partners and will support engagement between Inuit, academia, industry, regulatory bodies and government. Our industry and government partners will be working collaboratively with the hybrid academic and Inuit research teams to develop the technology platforms necessary to accomplish the objectives and further update IMO’s Polar Code.

The success of researchers and students is attributed to the dedicated support of our supporting teams, including the Engineering Research Office, the finance team, technologists and many others.

“The faculty values partnerships and support from industry, government and funding agencies, which make innovation possible.”

— Wei Qiu

Departmental Success Stories

Civil Engineering

Ashutosh Dhar, with partner Northern Crescent

Mitacs Accelerate: Finite Element Modelling for the Assessment of Dented Pipelines

Bipul Hawlader

NSERC Discovery Grant: Large Deformation Behavior of Soil in Landslides and Soil-Structure Interaction

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department of National Defence: 5G-Enabled Trustworthy Common Operational Picture with Edge Server Data Engine (5G-TCOP)

NSERC Research Tools and Instruments Grant: A 12-element Phased-array High Frequency Surface Wave Radar for Ocean Remote Sensing

Bing Chen

Northern Contaminants Program: Understanding of Distribution and Sources of Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers in the North and East of Great Slave Lake and Coastal Regions

NSERC Discovery Grant: Innovative High-Efficiency and High-Reliability Power Electronics Technologies for Renewable Energy Systems

Octavia Dobre

Weimin Huang

Ashraf Khan

“The FEAS is home to excellent researchers residing in the departments of civil, electrical and computer, mechanical and mechatronics, ocean and naval architectural and process engineering.”

— Wei Qiu

Mechanical Engineering

NSERC Discovery Grant: Transport in Single and Multiphase Flows with and without Phase Change

NSERC Discovery Grant: Analysis and Characterization of Advanced Composites for Competitive Failure Models

Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering

Department of Fisheries and Ocean- Coastal Environment

Baseline Program: Baseline Assessment of Underwater Radiated Noise from Shipping in Placentia Bay, Newfoundland

Mitacs Accelerate: Value-based Medicine: Innovation in Design of Healthcare Processes and Applying the Methods in Stroke Care

Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science

Process Engineering

Syed Imtiaz

Imperial Oil University Research

Award: Training Self-learning

Artificial Neural Network Model from Unlabeled Data

Kelly Hawboldt, with partner Corner Brook Pulp & Paper Limited

Mitacs Accelerate: Assessing Hydrothermal Methods to Monetize Pulp and Paper Biomass Residues

Ting Zou, with partner Ever Green Recycling

Mitacs Accelerate: Development of the Next-generation Automated Mobile Recycling System

NSERC Discovery Grant: Using Functional Modelling to Assess System Performance and Resilience in Socio-Technical Systems

Lesley James, with partner CNERGREEN Corp

Mitacs Accelerate: Characterization of Novel Nanoparticle-Stabilized Foam using the Local Equilibrium Implicit Texture Model for EOR and CO2 Storage

Yuri Muzychka

Sam Nakhla

Lorenzo Moro

Brian Veitch with partner The Health Care Foundation of St. John’s Inc.

Doug Smith

Faculty List

Administration

Interim Dean

Dobre, O.A.

PhD, P.Eng., FEIC, FIEEE, FCAE; Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Associate Dean (Graduate Studies)

Chen, B.

PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE, FEIC, FCAE, MRSC, Professor, Civil Engineering

Interim Associate Dean (Research)

Qiu, W.

PhD, P.Eng., FSNAME, FRINA, FCAE; Professor, Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering

Associate Dean (Undergraduate Studies)

Peters, D. K.

PhD, P.Eng., FEC; Professor, Electrical and Computer 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, 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

Acting Deputy Head

Dhar, A.S.

PhD, P.Eng. ; Professor

Specialization: Geotechnical engineering; pipe testing; numerical modelling

Professors

Chen, B.

PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE, FEIC, FCAE, MRSC, UArctic Chair in Marine and Coastal Environmental Engineering

Specialization: Oil spill response and cleanup; emerging contaminants under climate change; water/wastewater treatment

Hassan, A.A.A.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Development; durability; corrosion and service life prediction of concrete structures

Zhang, B

PhD, P.Eng., FCSCE, Canada Research Chair in Coastal Environmental Engineering

Specialization: Biosurfactants; emerging contaminants; marine oil spill response

Associate Professors

Adluri, S.

PhD

Specialization: Research mobilization; entrepreneurship; numerical methods

Bruneau, S.E

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Arctic ships and structures; energy; marine structural design and analysis

Daraio, J.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: climate change; sustainable infrastructure

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

Shiri, H.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Offshore foundations and geotechnique; subsea pipelines and risers; offshore and subsea installation; arctic subsea hazards; offshore fatigue and fracture; reliability assessment

Snelgrove, K.R.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Physical hydrology; remote sensing and GIS; climate change and extremes of floods and drought

Assistant Professor

Saady, N. PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Waste-to-bioenergy; biological wastewater treatment; site remediation

Professors Emeriti

Jordaan, I.J.

PhD, P.Eng., C.Eng., FICE, FCSCE, FEIC, FRSC

Lye, L.M.

PhD, P.Eng., FCE, FCSCE, FEIC, FCAE

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Department Head

Li, C.

PhD, P.Eng.; Professor

Specialization: Wireless communications and networking; communications signal processing; underwater communications and networking

Deputy Head

Zhang, L.

PhD, P.Eng.; Professor

Specialization: Very large-scale integration; design automation; micro-electromechanical system

Professors

Dobre, O.A.

PhD, P.Eng., FAAIA, FCAE, FEIC, FIEEE, Canada Research Chair in Ubiquitous Connectivity

Specialization: Wireless communications and networking; optical and underwater communications; integrated sensing and communication

Gosine, R.G.

PhD, P.Eng., FCAE, FEC, Associate Vice- President (Research)

Specialization: Telerobotics; machine vision; pattern recognition

Huang, W. PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Remote sensing

Iqbal, M.T. PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Hybrid power systems; renewable energy systems; electronics and control systems

Moloney, C.R. PhD

Specialization: Nonlinear signal and image processing methods; transformative pedagogy for science and engineering; gender and science studies

O’Young, S.D. PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Unmanned aircraft; instrumentation; controls and automation; robotics

Peters, D.K.

PhD, P.Eng., FEC

Specialization: Software design and specification; high performance computing; machine learning

Vardy, A.

PhD, P.Eng., Joint appointment (Computer Science)

Specialization: Swarm robotics

Associate Professors

Anderson, J.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Cybersecurity; operating systems; privacy

Czarnuch, S.M.

PhD, P.Eng., Joint appointment (Faculty of Medicine)

Specialization: Image processing; computer vision; machine learning

George, G.H.

PhD, CertEd, FRAS, FIMA

Specialization: Calculus; probability

Masek, V.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Instrumentation and control; smart sensors and robotics

Norvell, T.S.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Digital hardware; software, robotics and vision

Power, S.

PhD, P.Eng., Joint appointment (Faculty of Medicine)

Specialization: Biomedical engineering; brain-computer interfacing

Assistant Professor

Khan, A. PhD

Specialization: Power electronics; electric vehicles; renewable energy system

Teaching Associate Professor

Jamil, M.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Control systems; power electronics; machine learning

Teaching Assistant Professors

Shahidi, R. PhD

Specialization: Radar signal and image processing; machine learning for geophysical applications; vehicular ad-hoc networks

Wanasinghe, T.R. PhD

Specialization: Multi-agent systems with distributed state estimation; digitalization; machine learning

Cross Appointments

Mahdianpari, M. PhD

Specialization: Remote sensing; machine learning; geo big data

Cross appointment (C-CORE)

Professors Emeriti Gill, E.W.

PhD, P.Eng.

Peters, G.R.

PhD, P.Eng., FEC, FCAE

Quaicoe, J.E.

PhD, P.Eng., FEC

Venkatesan, R.

PhD, P.Eng.

Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering

Acting Department Head Pope, K.

PhD, P.Eng.; Associate Professor

Specialization: Thermal fluids; energy systems

Deputy Head

Duan, X.

PhD, P.Eng. FCSME; Associate Professor

Specialization: Heat transfer; multiphase flow; energy

Professors

Mann, G.K.I.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Robot trajectory control; multi-robotic systems; robotic mapping

Muzychka, Y.S.

PhD, P.Eng., FCSME, FASME, FEIC; University Research Professor

Specialization: Thermo-fluids; heat transfer; multiphase flow

Rideout, D.G.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Modeling and simulation; vibrations; drilling dynamics

Sharan, A.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Robotics; rotor dynamics

Associate Professors

Al Janaideh, M.

PhD

Specialization: Mechatronics; precision engineering; micro/ nano-positioning

De Silva, B.M.O. PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Navigation systems; machine learning; unmanned aerial vehicles

Nakhla, S.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Computer aided design; finite element modelling; structural health monitoring (metal corrosion and composites)

Taylor, R.S.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Ice-load estimation for the design of offshore structures; mechanics of compressive ice failure

Yang, J.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Machine design; vibration; wind power systems

Assistant Professors

Alidokht, S.A. PhD

Specialization: Surface engineering; coating tribology; mechanical properties and characterization

Morrissey, L. PhD

Specialization: Multiscale harsh environment modelling; mechanical properties of nanostructures

Ruby, A.Y. PhD

Specialization: Numerical modeling; mechanical characterization; machine learning

Zou, T. PhD

Specialization: Robotics; mechatronics; mechanism design and control

Teaching Assistant Professors

Bhouri, M. PhD

Nyantekyi-Kwakye, B. PhD, P.Eng.

Rosales, J. PhD

Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering

Acting Department Head

Moro, L.

PhD; Associate Professor

Specialization: Marine acoustics; marine noise and vibration; maritime health and safety

Deputy Head

Quinton, B.

PhD, P.Eng. ; Associate Professor

Specialization: Accidental limit states; polar class structures; moving (sliding) sliding loads; marine structure and materials; numerical modelling

Professors

Bose, N.

Ph.D., FCAE, F.I.E.Aust.; President and vice-chancellor

pro tempore

Specialization: Maritime robotics; autonomous underwater vehicles; marine propulsion

Daley, C.G.

Dr.Tech., P.Eng., FEC, FSNAME, FCAE

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, Cenovus Energy

Research Chair

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

Assistant Professor

Smith, D. PhD

Specialization: Complex systems; organizational safety; functional modelling

Professor Emeritus

Haddara, M.R.

PhD, P.Eng., C.Eng.

Process Engineering

Department Head

Imtiaz, S.

PhD, P.Eng.; Professor

Specialization: Process control and monitoring; alarm management; managed pressure drilling

Deputy Heads

Ahmed, S.

PhD, P.Eng.; Associate Professor

Specialization: Process safety and control; alarm system design; system identification

James, L.A.

PhD, P.Eng.; Professor

Specialization: Enhanced oil recovery; carbon capture utilization and storage; digital oilfields

Professors

Butt, S.D. PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Petroleum and mining engineering; drilling and geomechanics engineering

Hawboldt, K.A.

PhD, P.Eng., FCAE, University Research Professor

Specialization Chemical engineering; bioprocessing

Associate Professors

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

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 Professor

Aborig, A. PhD

Specialization: Reservoir engineering; enhanced oil recovery; well logging and formation evaluation

Lecturer

Azargohar, R.

PhD, P.Eng.

Specialization: Chemical engineering and bioprocess

“Memorial has a team of world-renowned researchers in Arctic ship technology”

— Dr. Bruce Quinton

When metal meets metalTesting the durability of steel plates against large impact forces

Memorial researcher helps make the Arctic a safer place

DR. BRUCE QUINTON

Global warming and melting ice are opening up the Arctic to more vessel traffic than ever before. Today it’s not uncommon to find personal sailboats and even cruise ships in Arctic waters.

In 2016 and 2017, the Crystal Serenity cruise ship crossed the Northwest Passage from Nuuk in Greenland to Nome in Alaska with almost 1,700 people on board. This voyage took more than a month for the 68,000 tonne ship to complete.

What would happen if a non-ice-class cruise ship such as Crystal Serenity became stranded while crossing the Northwest Passage? Would the Canadian Government, which is responsible for providing search and rescue and law enforcement in the Arctic, be prepared to safely evacuate thousands of guests and crew?

Would there be enough near-by ice-class ship support to safely rescue them?

The Canadian Government is also responsible for protecting Canadian sovereignty and security in the Arctic. Although the Royal Canadian Navy has recently taken delivery of three non-combatant iceclass Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) with three more to come, if an emergency presented itself in the Arctic today, the government might be hardpressed to respond in a timely manner.

And in the case of sovereignty issues, Canadian Coast Guard ships are not military vessels. Would three Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships be enough?

To combat these problems, Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC), Canada’s science and technology advisor to the Department of National Defence and the Royal Canadian Navy, decided to investigate the capability of non-ice class ships to assist in emergency situations.

To do this, they approached Memorial University Engineering to partner on investigating the capabilities of Canadian ships in ice-covered waters and they tapped Dr. Bruce Quinton, associate professor and

deputy head of the Department of Ocean & Naval Architectural Engineering, as principal investigator.

A natural choice, considering Dr. Quinton is an expert on ice-class ship structures, including moving and sliding ice loads on ship hulls.

“Memorial has a team of world-renowned researchers in Arctic ship technology like Dr. Claude Daley, who helped develop International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) polar class ship rules and Dr. David Molyneux, whose specialty is predicting the performance of ships in harsh environments,” explains Dr. Quinton. “Since 2018 we have been assisting DRDC in investigating ice-vessel collisions to predict risk of damage and how to mitigate that risk in not only ice-class vessels, but also low-iceclass and non-ice-class vessels.”

An ice-class vessel is designed to operate year-round in the Arctic, whereas light-class ice vessels can operate at particular times in the Arctic, and non-ice-class vessels have no ice class rating.

“In 2018, DRDC decommissioned the ex-HMCS IROQUOIS Canadian naval destroyer, and sent six pieces of the hull so we could investigate how fullscale non-ice-class ship hulls interact with ice,” said Dr. Quinton. “The IROQUOIS has seen 40 years in service, so we could test, not only what could happen to a ship in ice, but also what could happen to an aging ship in ice.”

What they found surprised them. The forty-year-old steel in the IROQUOIS has little degradation.

... in order for Canada to have an adequate emergency response capability in the Arctic, it may have to deploy non-ice-class vessels.

In running tests on the IROQUOIS, the team realized the same technology can’t be used to assess ice-class

Dr. Quinton’s team employs full-scale testing using pieces of the decommissioned Canadian destroyer, ex-HMCS IROQUOIS. Such experiments provide the basis for numerical modelling. This image shows an experiment using an ice cone in an ice-hull impact test.

ships like a Coast Guard ice breaker as to assess non-ice-class ships like the IROQUOIS. And right now, in order for Canada to have an adequate emergency response capability in the Arctic, it may have to deploy non-ice-class vessels.

With DRDC as a primary collaborator, the team at Memorial brought in other important industry partners: VARD Marine Inc., an international ship design company whose Canadian operations are headquartered in Ottawa and Vancouver, the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Department of Industry, Energy and Technology (IET).

The project, which brought in over a million dollars in funding, is contributing to NATO’s Science and Technology Organization’s Applied Vehicle Technology Panel, made up of more than a 1000 scientists and engineers, who work on advancing technologies to improve, among other things, the reliability and safety of vehicles including ships.

“We’re all worried about the same thing,” says Dr. Quinton. “Identifying a ship’s capabilities in ice; which types of scenarios certain ships can operate in and those they can’t. Icebreakers are extremely strong and robust structures that are designed with a particular bow shape to go into ice-covered waters, to bend ice and break it off, then the hull pushes the ice underwater and out of the way.

But war ships are designed to be lightweight; they are non-ice-class, yet they may have to respond to an incident in the Arctic. When non-ice class ships hit

ice, it’s like hitting a wall. They don’t have the forcelimiting mechanism of bending the ice and forcing it under and out of the way. An ice-hull collision is much more likely to put a dent and hole in the ship because of its hull shape.

“Even a small piece of ice can do considerable hull damage to the bow shoulder of a non-ice-class ship,” says Dr. Quinton. “That makes the analysis of structural response that more challenging. We look at material plasticity and the damage caused by sliding loads; there are much more complicated end results with non-ice-class vessels.”

To put that in layman’s terms, if an ice-class ship hits ice, you will most likely not see a dent, but if a nonice-class ship hits that same ice, you will most likely see considerable damage, and even a hole.

“We examine how a particular ship will respond in certain ice conditions. How much damage can we accept in a particular scenario? That’s the big question,” he says. We look at technology capabilities, at operational capabilities of a particular vessel in, for example, 5/10 ice coverage versus 7/10ths coverage.”

“We’re continuing to carry out ice impact experiments on pieces of the IROQUOIS. We’re doing fullscale testing, comparing aged steel with new steel, that could lead to future design changes in Canada’s warship fleet. The biggest challenge is developing appropriate scenarios in which to assess non-iceclass ships which do not react in the same way as ice-class vessels.”

One of the technologies they’re investigating is ice load monitoring systems (ILMS) for ships. For example, when an icebreaker outfitted with an ILMS hits a piece of ice, sensors in the hull determine the force of the ice impact, using ice load monitoring systems which send information to a computer that compares the impact with the ship’s structural capacity.

“The existing ILMS technologies presume that an ice-class ship will not be damaged during regular operations,” explains Dr. Quinton “Because nonice-class ships operating in ice will most likely be damaged in the same scenario, we have to adapt that philosophy; we have to come up with a different monitoring system.”

That’s where industry partner support comes in; our partners suggest the types of scenarios they’d like to investigate.

“It’s been four years and quite a lot of experimentation,” says Dr. Quinton. “We’ve made great strides towards a smart ice model that can be used for ship-ice impact simulation and self-defines high- and lowpressure zones in ice loads.”

Because COVID restrictions set them back on their testing, Dr. Quinton’s team has a two-year extension to complete the project which has seen undergrad, master’s and PhD students, as well as post-docs and an independent contract engineer.

Their specific research aims include:

• Adapting design and analysis methodologies for ice-class ships to non-ice-class ships (that will most likely be damaged while operating in ice)

• Developing a smart ice pressure model for simulation for ship ice interactions

• Adapting and upgrading GEM, a Memorial designed ship-ice simulation tool for assessing non-ice-class vessels

• Assessing the capability of aged non-ice-class ships in ice

• Developing knowledge of operating scenarios in which non-ice-class ships in the Arctic may be exposed so that ship operators can make informed decisions and therefore minimize any associated hull-damage

• Adapting existing ship instrumentation technologies that predict hull structural response to ice impacts

• Developing changes to warship design to minimize hull fractures in ice on future naval vessels

“We’ve already made great progress in understanding the operational capabilities of non-ice-class ships

Dr. Bruce Quinton (B.Eng., M.Eng., PhD (Memorial), P.Eng.) is deputy head and associate professor in the Department of Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering.

His expertise lies in the areas of marine structures and materials; and Arctic offshore and marine safety.

His research includes assessment of low- and non-ice-class hulls to ice loads, nonlinear finite element analysis of Polar Class structures, investigation of hull response to accidental moving loads and 4D Pressure Method – finite element implementation of general 3D + time varying pressure fields.

Dr. Quinton is a member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects (RINA), Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and Labrador (PEGNL), Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) and chairman of the Specialist Committee V.1 Limit States during Accidental and Damage Conditions, International Ship and Offshore Structures Congress 2025 (ISSC 2025).

in ice covered waters, and will continue this exciting work. Future research will leverage Memorial’s new state-of-the-art Harsh Environment Research Facility (HERF) which is presently under construction and is particularly well-suited to this area of research,” says Dr. Quinton. “Our partnerships and progress in understanding the complexities of ice and non-ice-class ship hull interaction, ship operating scenarios and operational techniques, and advances in ILMS technologies will better enable Canada to protect people, the environment, and operations in the Arctic by supporting search and rescue, enforcement of Arctic shipping regulations, and protection of our Arctic sovereignty; particularly in emergency scenarios.”

New process engineering faculty member makes rock solid start

DR. CUI LIN

Dr. Cui Lin, new assistant professor in the Department of Process Engineering, holds not only one, but two doctorates – she obtained her first PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology in Beijing, China, and in 2020, she earned a second PhD in Mineral Resource Engineering from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

Her research involves ground stability control and geomechanics in surface and underground mines and her current focus is pre-excavation stress estimation to determine the amount of stress and its direction deep underground.

“I want to optimize excavation design and ground stability support,” says Dr. Lin. “It is challenging to determine stresses in the ground; the deeper the ground, the higher the stress, and the more potential ground failure. My goal is to develop a simple affordable method to identify these underground stresses.”

Before any mining or oil and gas drilling takes place underground, scientists must look at existing stresses in the ground due to the weight of the overlaying strata get a handle on their magnitudes and directions to ensure safety. When a borehole or excavation is created in the rock, new stresses develop which can result in instability and/or collapse due to stress build-up nearby. For decades, researchers have been developing methods to measure these stresses, known as field stress or pre-excavation stress, in order to provide accurate information for modeling, designing, planning and developing underground mines and oil and gas wells.

Up to now, most measurements have been limited to two dimensions, for example within a plane. 3D stress measurement is technically challenging, timeconsuming and thus, costly. A three-dimensional stress field underground has six independent components

that affect ground stability. The main method used to measure 3D stresses is called the over-coring method. Using that method, a large hole must be drilled to a proper depth into the rock. This is followed by drilling a co-axial smaller borehole to install a measurement device.

“We have to clean the borehole very well,” says Dr. Lin. “Then, we extend the larger hole surrounding the borehole to relieve the stress and the change in the borehole is measured. This method investigates stresses only in a small volume of rock and is expensive as it requires complete stress relief at the measurement location.”

What Dr. Lin is proposing is a new 3D method which uses differential-direction drilling and analyzes the measured borehole deformation in reverse order to calculate the stress. This method, which she calls D3 looks at borehole diametrical convergence measurements.

“I have overcome the challenge of calculating the 3D stresses using 2D measurement data,” she explains. “With the D3 method, measurements are taken in three non-parallel planes with no need for over-coring.”

Dr. Lin has developed a total of five mathematical models (one in linear elastic and four in poro-elastic) for the anticipated field scenarios. This is where the experience she gained completing her second PhD in Nova Scotia comes in handy. At Dalhousie she employed numerical modelling in mining and geomechanics to identify fields of stress underground.

“We use C++ and MATLAB for programming. We can enter the rock properties and all other required parameters and the program will automatically show the results of stresses.”

Dr. Cui Lin hopes to develop a new rock stress measurement technology for underground excavations for safe and sustainable mining.

“I have done the theoretical work; now I will work on the practical implementation. Ultimately, I want to apply this method to industry, but first I need to address some practical issues, such as actual borehole size which needs to be measured with a special device,” she says. “I have yet to find a suitable measurement device; so, I will work with students and technical services to design and develop a device to measure deformation. I have begun the design process; we will use a laser sensor. We need to rotate that sensor; we need to secure the device in the borehole. It has to be easy to set up and retrieve. We need to perform sixteen measurements; we will use an angle sensor to achieve this.”

This has been a dream for people in the mining industry for a long time. If I can find a simple way to solve this complicated problem; to reduce costs and come up with a method that can be used by industrial companies, that would make me very happy.

“This has been a dream for people in the mining industry for a long time. If I can find a simple way to solve this complicated problem; to reduce costs and come up with a method that can be used by industrial companies, that would make me very happy.”

Dr. Lin, who has already published over forty papers in refereed journals, is also interested in applying the D3 method to petroleum engineering by taking separate sets of measurements in different sections of a directional well. Current methods are not suitable for petroleum engineering because of limited well access. Many measurements of the in-situ stresses are two-dimensional and limited to specific directions.

While Dr. Lin awaits the arrival of her research grant and lab equipment, she will continue teaching and recruiting highly motivated students to work on her research. She will also apply for industry funding and continue collaborating with her former PhD supervisor at Dalhousie.

Dr. Cui Lin arrived at Memorial at the end of August 2022. Since then, she has been busy settling in to her new environment and establishing her research program. In the winter term, Dr. Lin taught one course: extractive metallurgy to recover metals from ores and mineral concentrates. In the spring, she will begin teaching two courses: mineral processing and tailings management introducing extraction and processing of minerals from the ground in environmentally responsible ways, and process mathematical methods covering applications of numerical methods to different aspects of process engineering.

She is a member of Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) and a member of International Society for Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering (ISRM). Her research goals are to maintain excavation and mine safety, reduce risks and environmental impacts and support sustainable development in the mineral resource industry.

Memorial Engineering and the National Research Council of Canada collaborate to advance green ship technologies

Improving the efficiency of Newfoundland fishing vessels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and propeller-induced noise.

Have you ever spent a day working in an environment with intrusive noise? Can you imagine noise generated by a 200,000-ton twin-propellered cruise ship?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, you will appreciate the collaboration between Dr. Heather Peng, associate professor in the Department of Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering and the National Research Council (NRC) investigating how to reduce underwater radiated noise (URN).

“Noise generated by propellers in the global shipping fleet is detrimental not only to those who work on board, but also to marine life,” explains Dr. Peng.

This has been a challenge since the first propeller ships were constructed around 1800. Now with far more ships of various size and shape, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) which is the wing of the United Nations responsible for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine and atmospheric pollution by ships, has mandated ships around the world reduce the shipping industry’s environmental footprint. Since 2013, all new ships need to meet IMO’s Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) targets, encouraging the use of more energy efficient and therefore less-polluting ship propulsion systems and engines.

In order to achieve the least required power and best propulsion efficiency, the research has focused on optimization of the hull propeller interaction in waves.

“What we look at is marine hydrodynamics; the effects of waves on the performance of a ship. The added resistance of waves is directly related to the geometry of the ship, propeller, rudder, and engine power. By accurately assessing a ship’s performance in waves, we can better analyse ship hull and propeller design.”

The European Union has also conducted a collaborative research project called AQUO (Achieve Quieter Oceans) which provided information about the contribution of each source of noise generated by different types of ships.

“What their study concluded,” says Dr. Peng, “is once the propeller cavitation occurs, it is typically the most important source of noise for vessels at normal operating speeds. Cavitation refers to the formation of bubbles created on a propeller surface once the propellers are rotating quickly. When bubbles leave the surface, they collapse and generate hammer-like impact loads on the blades causing damage to the propeller blade surfaces, vibration and less thrust and efficiency. It is these bubbles collapsing that can cause noise levels to jump substantially.”

“The exciting part of my research is the collaboration we have with NRC-OCRE,” says Dr. Peng. “Together with the team at the National Research Council, Memorial researchers and students investigate how to improve the design and efficiency performance of a vessel. By looking at how a ship’s hull and propeller interact in waves, we can help design more energy efficient vessels and reduce underwater noise from propellers. This leads to safer operations, fuel reduction and noise reduction, allowing more comfort for those on board the vessels and as well as marine life.”

To carry out their research, the partners will use a large-scale model of a Newfoundland fishing vessel with a bulbous bow and a four-blade fixed pitch propeller to conduct resistance and self-propulsion tests in the NRC-OCRE 200-metre towing tank. They will investigate the scale effect which is critical for the vessel design.

“It’s important to improve the understanding of the physics of these interactions to enable a better

DR. HEATHER PENG

“By looking at how a ship’s hull and propeller interacts in waves, we can help design more energy efficient vessels and reduce underwater noise from propellers.”

— Dr. Heather Peng

design of ship hull forms and their propulsion systems for more efficient and safe operations at sea,” says Dr. Ayhan Akinturk, research officer with NRC, whose role is coordinating the model testing. “The model testing will be done through the Karluk Collaboration Space, which opened in 2019 to encourage partnerships between Memorial and NRC on discoveries and advancement in ocean engineering, technology, and science. This research on hull and propeller design falls in line with the government initiative of greening of ships. It’s very timely.”

Advancement seldom comes without challenges, however.

“The biggest challenge is scaling,” says Dr. Peng. “Translating measurements from a model to fullscale is not straight-forward. We have to make sure non-dimensional coefficients are the same. However, sometimes this is impossible. That’s why we need to establish a numerical method to do full-scale simulations. The larger model test can help us to understand the scaling effect and validate the numerical methods, especially with hull, propeller and rudder interactions.”

“For the numerical simulations, we will use a new sliding interface method to model the full propeller behind the hull. We also developed a dynamic motion solver to take the rotating propeller, rudder and 6-degrees-of-freedom of ship motion in waves into account. These experimental results are then used to validate the numerical studies. To date, the numerical prediction has been proven by the small-scale model tests conducted in the tow tank of the Ocean Engineering Research Centre (OERC) at Memorial.”

“In the future, we hope to do full-scale measurements,” says Dr. Peng, explaining that this round of research is expected to last three years, finishing by the end of 2023. “We aim to develop an improved methodology for ship design and operations and hope the program will be used by designers and operators, such as the fishing industry, commercial shipping, and the Canadian Coast Guard, with improved guidelines on efficient and safe ship operations. The research outcomes will also facilitate regulatory bodies to improve the regulations for hull efficiency and safe operation of ships in harsh ocean environments,” she says.

“The most satisfying part of this research is that the students involved will be trained in computational and experimental methods. They will be qualified to assist in helping Canada achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, propeller cavitation, propeller induced environmental and occupational

Department of Ocean & Naval Architectural Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science Memorial University of Newfoundland

Dr. Heather Peng, associate professor in the Department of Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering, received her B.Sc. (1990) and M.A.Sc. (1993) in naval architecture from Dalian University of Technology, China and PhD (2001) in naval architecture/marine hydrodynamics from Dalhousie University.

She worked as a senior hydrodynamicist with Martec Limited in Halifax from 2000 to 2004 and with Oceanic Consulting Corporation in St. John’s from 2005 to 2008. She joined Memorial University as an assistant professor in 2008 and was promoted to associate professor in 2014.

Her main research expertise is in marine/ship hydrodynamics and its application to ship and offshore structure design and evaluation. She is particularly interested in numerical prediction of ship motions and wave loads, hydrodynamic interactions of multiple floating bodies in waves, coupled dynamic analysis of moored offshore structures, dynamic positioning of ships and offshore structures in waves and in ice, multi-hull ship resistance, hull form optimization, renewable wave energy converter, ship manoeuvring, shallow water waves, and safety of ships and offshore structures.

Dr. Ayhan Akinturk is a research officer with the National Research Council (NRC) with over twenty years’ experience in ship-related research.

noise and propeller excited hull vibrations. They will also help Transport Canada by providing technical information to develop regulations and measures to reduce emissions and propeller induced noise in the marine industry.”

This project is funded jointly by Transport Canada, NRC and the NSERC iMERIT CREATE Program with Dalhousie including four Atlantic Canadian Universities.

Dr. Ayhan Akinturk discussing the project collaboration with Professor Heather Peng at the 200 m long NRC towing tank. Pictured in photo L-R graduate students Shanqin Jin and Liam Gregory, Dr. Heather Peng , Dr. Ayhan Akinturk, graduate students Emre Cilkaya and Adwaith Nath.

“It is so exciting to find a functional strain or a bioproduct not previously reported... That is the magic of science.”

— Dr. Baiyu Zhang

The Magic of Science Worldwide Coastal Pollution Mitigation: All in a day’s work for Canada Research Chair

Dr. Baiyu (Helen) Zhang is a superhero when it comes to environmental protection. She is a defender of marine and coastal regions, a champion of remediation; she is a multi-faceted fighter against the forces of pollution, disguised as a professor of civil engineering, fights a never-ending battle against all pollutants: oil spills, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, personal care products…

Her weapon; bio-based products and technologies.

In Memorial’s Coastal Environment Research Laboratory (CERL), which she founded, Dr. Zhang develops new bio-based products and technologies for mitigating pollution in both the ocean and freshwater. And, her efforts don’t stop there. Dr. Zhang is also a key researcher in the Northern Region Persistent Organic Pollution (NRPOP) Control Lab, where she studies the occurrence and impacts of emerging contaminants.

In layman’s terms, Dr. Zhang is an expert at identifying, assessing, and remedying coastal environmental pollutants that are hazardous to the health of wildlife and humans and destructive to the ecosystem.

For her efforts, Dr. Zhang was, in 2017, awarded one of the top funding posts in the country, a fiveyear Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Coastal Environmental Engineering. Not only that, but in November 2022, she had this post renewed for another five years. That means she will have brought $100,000 per year for ten years to Memorial to fund her research. In addition, Dr. Zhang was also awarded the associated Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) equipment grants to purchase new instruments essential to conduct research in her lab.

It is with these super powerful machines that she will tackle the problem of micro-plastics and other contaminants in water.

In her lab, superior biosurfactant-producing microbes were isolated from the Atlantic Ocean. Based on these microbes, new biosurfactant-relevant oil spill treating agents (bio-herders, bio-emulsifiers, biodispersants, bio-demulsifiers) were generated.

“It is so exciting to find a functional strain or a bioproduct not previously reported,” says Dr. Zhang. “The students and everybody on the team are so happy. You cannot imagine how exciting that moment is. That is the magic of science.”

Microplastics are another focus of Dr. Zhang’s team. “The marine environment is a major sink for plastics; it’s where they become micro and nano-sized,” Dr. Zhang explains. “We need to understand the occurrence and behaviors of these particles in the marine environment, their impact on the ecosystem, and ways to mitigate the pollution. Plastics are made up of stable structures that are hard to break down.

Opposite page: Masoumeh Bavadi and Bo Liu discuss the organic composition analytical results provided by GC-MS/MS

Above: From left to right, Bo Liu (PDF), Masoumeh Bavadi (PhD), Dr. Helen Zhang (PI), Min Yang (PhD), Hemeihui Zhao (MEng)

DR. BAIYU (HELEN) ZHANG

So, we look at where they’re located and the possible weathering processes to help break them down. We must understand what happens during these processes and what the associated impacts are.”

“Microplastics can be carriers of many pollutants in the oceans; this would lead to the formation of different co-contamination agglomerates. For example, microplastics can incorporate with oil to form MP-oil agglomerate or MOA.”

Dr. Zhang’s team is the first to report the existence of MOA in the oceans. “Our team found that the MOA formation resulted in decreased oil dispersion efficacy and affected marine oil spill response operations. Moreover, oil biodegradation rates change when oil exists in the form of MOA.”

Why are MOA studies important?

Because the slow vertical transport of MOA might lead to wider ocean contamination. MOA can have far worse impacts on phytoplankton, zooplankton, and high trophic species in the marine environment than MPs individually. MOA assembling with phytoplankton in oceans may also reduce carbon dioxide transport to deep seas. Therefore, it is important to investigate the links between microplastics and other components in the oceans.

“This opens a door for understanding what has happened there and building a foundation for remediation,” says Dr. Zhang, who is also looking at antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes, tracking

their transfer in the ecosystem and the food chain.

“We are interested in the status of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes in communities. Based on such investigation, we can further explore the dissemination mechanisms of ARGs and their impact on water safety and community health.”

Of course, Dr. Zhang’s research would not be possible without funders. In the past twelve years, she has received over fifty grants and contracts. Besides CRC and CFI, she has secured government funds, such as Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and of industry sponsors, such as Energy Research and Innovation NL (ERINL) and Suncor Energy; and other international organizations such as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“Every year, I write between five and ten proposals. For the first and second years of my career, I wrote almost all my proposals during the night with a full schedule during the day,” she says. “It’s a hard journey. However, the reward is not only the funding, but the great opportunities working with all the collaborators and stakeholders.”

Besides filling knowledge and technical gaps through these research activities, Dr. Zhang has co-supervised 50 students - 8 post-doc, 21 PhD and 21 master’s since joining Memorial in 2010. She has also hosted visiting international scholars and students. Her trainees have received over 30 national/ international awards and launched successful careers

Hemeihui Zhao and Min Yang track MOA particle size distribution

in academia and the private/public sectors. For example, two former students were hired as assistant professors in Canada and USA in 2022.

“Canada employed over 250,000 environmental professionals in 2016 and the workforce has grown tenfold in two decades. The trend will continue or even accelerate to meet the fast-growing market needs in addressing emerging environmental problems. The future workforce is expected to possess proper knowledge and skills, as well as be interdisciplinary and versatile,” says Dr. Zhang. “Training the next generation of environmental professionals and practitioners is my most important career goal”.

“The multidisciplinary aspect of my work is not only a big advantage, but also the biggest challenge. We need to quickly learn, and the learning curve is steep. Interesting, yes, but also challenging. We have partners from multiple countries, France, Norway, UK, China, Australia, USA and Canada with diverse backgrounds including engineering, earth science, biology, chemistry, and other disciplines. We’re not only conducting collaborative research, we also need to be experts in project management; we need to work closely with students, visiting researchers, funders, policymakers and responders, and industrial partners. And there are always challenges; since the pandemic hit, for example, it’s been difficult to continue lab work due to supply chain problems.

It’s worth it; it’s all about science and our next generation. That is the biggest driving force.

“On top of all that, we need to understand the various students’ strengths and weaknesses, cheer them up when they meet difficulties, provide professional development opportunities, and help them achieve their career goals. But eventually it all gets done. It’s worth it; it’s all about science and our next generation. That is the biggest driving force.”

Dr. Baiyu (Helen) Zhang [(B.Sc. (Hons.), M.Sc. (Jilin), PhD (Regina), P.Eng., F.CSCE] joined the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (FEAS) at Memorial as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering in 2010. She received an early promotion to associate professor in 2015.

In 2017, Dr. Zhang began serving as Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Coastal Environmental Engineering. In 2019-2020, she served as associate dean, research (acting) of FEAS. Dr. Zhang was promoted to professor in 2020 and was renewed as CRC in 2022. She is a registered professional engineer in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Dr. Zhang’s research expertise lies in the area of coastal environmental engineering. Through her leading-edge research, Dr. Zhang aims to contribute to handling coastal oil and emerging contamination, and driving the ocean economies to be more sustainable and productive under a changing climate.

Since joining Memorial, Dr. Zhang has led or co-led over 50 research grants/contracts. These include research funds with a total amount of more than 12 million Canadian dollars from federal and provincial agencies, industry sponsors, and other international organizations. Dr. Zhang has (co-)authored over 300 publications with more than 150 peer-reviewed articles in journals. Her research contributions have been widely recognized in newsletters and magazines.

Dr. Zhang has received many awards and honors, such as Memorial President’s Award for Outstanding Research, Dean’s Award for Research Excellence of FEAS, NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement Award, CFI John R. Evans Leaders Fund Award, CFI Innovation Leaders Opportunity Fund Award, and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, and a Fellow of Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC).

Mega collaboration helps university, province and private industry

Engineering researcher equally invested in her province and her students

DR. LESLEY JAMES

“There are two strategic research initiatives that I’m trying to advance for our university and the province, clean energy and critical minerals,” says Dr. Lesley James, professor and former Chevron Chair in Petroleum Engineering in the Department of Process Engineering. “The goal is to bring together cohesive, collaborative groups who can work together –Memorial, government and industry. We can do more together than by ourselves. Let’s work together to achieve more, like Norway and Alberta.”

Although still at the strategic setting-up stage, Dr. James envisions a cohesive, multidisciplinary collaborative team within Memorial, partnering with the College of the North Atlantic, all levels of government, and industry to help meet the world’s clean energy and critical mineral research and education needs.

“We need to attract, educate, and graduate students who are motivated and well-educated to work in these strategic areas where they’re needed. Clean Energy and critical minerals go hand-in-hand and it requires every innovation possible to reduce our carbon emissions. Wind turbines and high density electric batteries require critical minerals. They need to be mined and processed sustainably with less waste using green energy and/or carbon capture and storage. It’s all related and there is not one magic solution to clean energy.”

These are monumental undertakings with support from many faculty colleagues, the Department of Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science, and the Office of the Vice-President Research.

Drilling Data Analytics Drill Bit Forensics Team, who won 2nd place in the SPE DUPTs drill bit 2022 competition.

From left to right, Alan Clarke (tech lead), Harnoor Singh (2nd year computer engineering student), Dr. Lesley James, Don Hender (previous co-tech lead), Dr. Ali Abdulbaset (PDF), and Daniel Kelly (BSc Chemistry, and 3rd year process engineering student)

“I believe in well-rounded professional development of students, of course, the development of their technical and scientific skills, but I also believe in encouraging and mentoring students with their communication, professional development, and leadership skills to help them get started on their careers,” says Dr. James, who explains that by hiring international students as full-time employees helps them get their permanent residency, and once they have that, they are eligible for a lot more jobs. “I’m proud of how many new Canadians I’ve supported to become permanent residents and citizens.”

I believe in well-rounded professional development of students, of course, the development of their technical and scientific skills, but I also believe in encouraging and mentoring students with their communication, professional development, and leadership skills to help them get started on their careers...

CO2 offshore. It’s the power of data and its analytics; knowing how it can be used in drilling or to optimize production; it’s the people who can look at the data, understand it and explore new ways to utilize it, our perspectives coming together to really understand exactly how the different technical pieces of the puzzle fit together to paint the detailed scene.”

This approach appears to be working as Dr. James has so many collaborations, this story can only touch on a few. First, there’s her long-standing collaboration with Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. starting with the Hibernia EOR Lab in 2011 where the collaboration is still ongoing. While the primary focus is on EOR techniques that make sense 350 km offshore (including the use of CO2), some of the focus is on studying possibilities for carbon injection and storage.

Drilling Data Analytics

As Dr. James reflects on the achievements of her previous PhD students, she takes pride in all their achievements. For example Drs. Nan Zhang and Jie Cao, who currently work in Norway as a researcher at the University of Stavanger and CTO at eDrilling, respectively. Their professional expertise in multidisciplinary areas allows them to develop and implement cutting-edge technologies for the sustainable development of subsurface resources in the Norwegian continental shelf. Dr. Shijia Ma did her master’s at the University of Stavanger, PhD with Dr. James and is now a research engineer at UK-China CCUS Centre in Guangdong, P.R. China studying CO2 storage in basalts. In 2023, Maziyar Mahmoodi (M.Eng. 2015) was promoted from research engineer to lab manager in the Hibernia Research Group.

“My outlook towards research in general is about building local collaboration and helping the Newfoundland and Labrador economy; that’s where my passion is – the development of people, and within that, comes collaboration.”

Dr. James collaborates not only with industry, but with other engineering disciplines/expertise, geoscientists, mathematicians, statisticians and computer science professors.

“I like building out the research network; working together to solve complex multidisciplinary problems. It could be drilling data analytics or how to store

“Right now, we’re involved in a drilling data analytics project with the aim of making drilling more efficient, safer, and conducted in a manner that mitigates greenhouse gas emissions. A lot of energy goes into drilling, so if we can save days drilling, we can theoretically save the amount of energy that is used.”

The collaborative project received $1,863,329 in funding and is one of twenty-six supply and service projects through the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Recovery Assistance Fund, totaling approximately $35.5 million.

It’s truly a multi-collaboration between industry, government and academia, including various faculties; engineering, math and statistics, and computer science,” says Dr. James. “This project is really neat because we’ve had well over twenty full-time equivalent persons working on this project. Dr. Ronald Haynes in Math is Co-PI, collaborators include Drs. Steve Butt and Syed Imtiaz in process engineering, and Dr. Reza Shahidi in computer engineering/science and other professors are getting involved and the work is being used to discuss case studies in the Master’s of Data Science program. We also have a technical consultant, Alan Clarke, to share over twenty plus years of drilling knowledge.

Previous Projects with Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador

Dr. James and team have also collaborated on two projects with Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador. The first, which looked at whether CO2 can be used for enhanced oil recovery

Hibernia Research Group, 2023. Front Row: Dorcas Akrong, Mahsan Basafa, Norah Hyndman, Sepideh Alimohammadi, Fatemeh Reisi, Maziyar Mahmoodi. Second Row: Samuel Asare, Omid Mohammadzadeh, Sanjay Dubey, Farzan Sahari Moghaddam, Jinesh Machale, Ejiro Ovwigho, Hosein Derijani, Lucky Abiashue.

(EOR) in complex reservoirs, was in collaboration with Drs. Steve Butt and Yuri Muzychka. Dr. Steve Butt is a professor of process engineering and principal investigator for Memorial’s Drilling Technology Lab and Dr. Yuri Muzychka is a professor in mechanical engineering who studies thermal fluid systems. At a later date, Dr. Karem Azmy, a geochemistry professor who studies sedimentary basins from the Department of Earth Science joined.

The second was a digital oilfield with Co-PI, Dr. Dennis Peters, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering whose research focuses on high-performance computing.

These professional development courses in digital artificial intelligence and machine learning make a direct link to the oil and gas industry helping students obtain jobs.

“We developed a suite of courses bridging digitalization and oil and gas outreach,” says Dr. James. “These professional development courses in digital

artificial intelligence and machine learning make a direct link to the oil and gas industry helping students obtain jobs.”

CNERGREEN

Another project Dr. James is excited about is with CNERGREEN, a Calgary-based startup co-founded by Dr. Ali Telmadarreie, who works with complex fluids, like foam, and nanomaterials for underground applications.

“I met Ali when he came to Memorial University for a student competition while he was doing his PhD at the University of Calgary. Ali has developed and patented a non-stabilized foaming agent consisting of a secret recipe of nano-particles and surfactants to increase EOR efficiency.”

Basically, what this foam does is plug high permeability pathways in the reservoir where injected water continues to bypass oil in less permeable parts of the reservoir. It was developed for onshore western Canada conditions, and now Dr. James and team are understanding how it works in offshore NL field conditions.

“Through simulation and experimental work, we’re studying the foam rheology, which refers to how it deforms under pressure and flows, as well as the interactions of the foam with oil, water and gas, and reservoir rock.

The first phase of the project was to try the nanoparticle-based foam in offshore NL conditions by doing lab scale micromodel and coreflood studies, then simulate the experiments at the field scale.

“Try it and test it in the lab, then model the foam at the lab and field scale – this is the typical R&D workflow for EOR studies,” says Dr. James.

Phase 1 was funded through CNERGREEN from ERINL’s delivering the offshore research, development and demonstration (RD&D) component of Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) Emissions Reduction Fund. The second phase of the project is funded by both CNERGREEN and Mitacs, which helps Canadian companies solve problems by partnering them with other companies or individuals who can help, thereby creating job opportunities for students and post-docs.

“We’ve done a lot of preliminary tests and we’re now going back to understand the complex and fundamental science behind the results,” says Dr. James.

That’s where Dr. Anand Yethiraj, professor in Physics comes in. His research in soft matter focuses on foam physics and rheology. Dr. Jinesh Machale is the postdoctoral fellow on the project with a PhD from IIT Guwahati in India and Curtin University in Australia along with Dorcas Akrong, an experienced reservoir engineer, who moved to St. John’s from Ghana to do her PhD at Memorial. The team is now characterizing the foam and its interactions with sea water and oil.

“Think how you have a sink full of nice sudsy water and the moment you wash a greasy dish, the foam disappears. Now do that at high pressure and temperature, inside the microscopic pores of a rock,” says Dr. James, explaining how the team will then find better ways to model the foam as it flows and interacts in the reservoir.

Econext

Dr. James is also involved in many smaller collaborations like the one with the not-for-profit business association, Econext, whose goal is to accelerate clean growth in Newfoundland and Labrador. Dr. James helped produce videos about carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) in the Arctic.

Dr. Lesley James is professor in the Department of Process Engineering at Memorial University. Dr. James’ research focuses on sustainable offshore oil production by increasing oil recovery rates through enhanced and improved oil recovery (EOR/IOR) and production optimization; drilling optimization, and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).

She was awarded the 2018 Dean’s Award for Research Excellence along with awards for her volunteering efforts. Dr. James is a professional engineer with PEGNL, a member, technical committee member, and past president of the Society of Core Analysts (SCA); committee member and faculty advisor for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE); and members of the Canadian Society of Chemical Engineers (CSChE) and European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE). https://www.mun.ca/engineering/research/eor/

How does Dr. James manage all these projects?

“My biggest challenge is time and juggling organizational duties,” says Dr. James. “There are not enough hours in the day. But my students make it worth it. My greatest accomplishment is seeing my students succeed. I’ve worked with students from Bangladesh, China, Columbia, Ghana, India, Iran, Japan, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Venezuela, and Vietnam, besides Canada, and I’m likely forgetting a country or a few. It’s exciting to see a student excited and motivated by what they’re doing. Some days I think the people part is more interesting than the science.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJGoa_tVKGc

“There is always demand for environmental engineers.”

— Dr. Noori Saady

“Dr. Saady (left) discusses with the environmental engineering MEng students Tasni Hassan Nazifa (middle) and Hussein Ghalib Salih (right) the setting of an experimental waste treatment biological reactor.”

Community-Centered Research: Cow paddies and Mussel Shells; Value in Waste

Memorial researcher addressing needs of residents in small Newfoundland and Labrador communities

DR. NOORI SAADY

What do mussel shells and cow manure have in common?

Both are used in engineering research at Memorial.

Dr. Noori Saady, assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, is an environmental engineer who specializes in biotechnologies for waste treatment and converting renewable waste biomass into biofuel and bioenergy.

My main research started with my PhD in 2007 when I looked at how fermentation converts organic waste into valuable by-products such as biogas, fertilizers, fibre, and bioenergy.

What does that mean?

Dr. Saady can take cow manure from dairy farms and convert it into electricity.

“There is a huge market for growth in biogas in North America,” says Dr. Saady, who has secured more than $230,000 in funding from NSERC and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador for his collaboration with Lester’s Farm, a dairy farm in St. John’s with about 600 cows.

“North America is way behind Europe when it comes to producing and using biogas. Here in North America, we generate only around fifteen per cent of what Europe is generating,” says Dr. Saady.

The idea is for dairy farms to digest (biodegrade) manure to generate biogas rich in methane (similar to propane) to drive a turbine and convert it to electricity and heat, which the farm can use to operate their own machinery and sell what is left to the grid.

“In Lester’s barn, we installed four forty-litre digesters to demonstrate the process,” he says. “The exciting

part of this research is we are creating a more sustainable community, with less waste, saving farmers money, and creating jobs. Not only do we have the potential to develop biogas, but we can also convert manure into fertilizer for use on the farm or separate the fibres and use them as bedding for the cows. All this is achieved while we cut the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock manure management to the atmosphere; this completes the circle of sustainability.”

Converting cow manure into usable fuel is being done elsewhere, but what is different about Dr. Saady’s research is his team is looking at a dry process to minimize the amount of water used. They’re also looking at using a lower temperature in the digester.

Links: https://vocm.com/2019/05/30/engineeringstudent-plotting-path-between-farm-waste-and-fuel/ Text interview Telegram, June 25, 2018 https://www.pressreader.com/

“The biggest challenge apart from lack of space to operate on a large scale, is the Newfoundland climate,” says Dr. Saady, who was on the Stanford list of top 2% Scientists in 2022 for publication impact, with 60 publications, over 60,000 reads and more than 1,500 citations.

Because the temperature in the digesters should be the same as in a cow gut, they have to increase the heat from about 20 degrees Celsius to 37. And since it won’t work to heat the whole barn, they need to insulate and ventilate a small room within the barn. This is a working farm with limited space which cannot accommodate research all the time. That means Dr. Saady is always looking for more funding for biogas research.

“With the NL climate being cool, we end up having to use energy generated from the biogas to heat the digester,” he says. “It would be much better if

we were able to operate at 20 degrees Celsius. My dream would be to establish a lab at Memorial for this type of bioprocesses; to learn how to operate at a lower temperature, digest various types of organic waste such as food, fisheries, and slaughterhouse waste; cow, swine, and poultry manure; and agriculture residue, as well as train more students to meet the ever-increasing job market demand for such skills in bioprocesses.”

“Because the biogas components (methane and carbon dioxide) we generate come from green sources, they are considered sustainable and do not increase the budget of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” he explains. “We can also convert biogas to hydrogen to make it greener.”

Dr. Saady has trained nineteen students on various aspects of bioprocesses such as producing biogas and hydrogen, digesting various wastes such as manure, blood, and food waste, and how to use machine learning and modeling for biogas projects. One of his master’s students, Mr. Abdollah Hajizadeh, received an award for the best oral presentation about biogas at the 70th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference in Ottawa. Mr. Hajizadeh has since been hired to work for a company in Toronto specializing in converting carbon dioxide into value-added products.

“I’m trying to expose younger students, especially at the undergraduate level, to this field because it is booming,” says Dr. Saady. “There is always demand for environmental engineers.”

Dr. Saady’s second major research project involves converting mussel shell waste into an adsorbent to remove arsenic from groundwater.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, among the 220 small communities of under 1,000 people, many depend on private wells for drinking water.

Some of these wells supply water contaminated by arsenic that comes from the natural geoformation (rocks) of the soil. Arsenic can cause cancer in humans when consumed beyond the maximum allowable levels. Because arsenic is tasteless and odourless, a chemical test is required to confirm its existence. If detected, arsenic will not evaporate by boiling, so some people have installed individual filtration systems to remove the arsenic while others depend on bottled water for drinking and cooking. This problem dominated the news in early 2022.

See links:

• https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundlandlabrador/arsenic-exposure-reduce-risk-1.6704891

• https://vocm.com/2023/01/15/dangerous-arseniclevels-detected-in-harbour-grace-well/

• https://www.gov.nl.ca/ecc/waterres/cycle/ groundwater/well/arsenic/

Because there is, as of yet, no program for arsenic removal, Dr. Saady and his team are investigating using a common local waste material, mussel shells, to alleviate the problem.

Dr. Noori Saady and PhD student Roya Neisan in conversation about the impact of flow rate on the removal of arsenic utilizing activated mussel shells.

“In Newfoundland and Labrador, we produce about 50,000 metric tonnes of mussel shells that currently end up in a landfill,” explains Dr. Saady. “We’d like to find an alternate use for them, reducing the amount that ends up in the dump, while at the same time helping small communities in the province become more sustainable.”

The research team grinds the mussel shells like sand, processes them to make them active for use as an adsorbent to remove arsenic.

In another project that addresses the needs of smaller Newfoundland and Labrador communities, Dr. Saady collaborates with Drs. Deatra Walsh and Kathleen Parewick from Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador (MNL) to develop a program to monitor the wastewater quality to ensure it meets Canadian guidelines.

“These communities need help because they don’t have sufficient resources; be they human, technical, lab or monetary to conduct their own wastewater monitoring programs. We can help them in designing, optimizing, and conducting pilots for such programs” says Dr. Saady.

“Funding sources, such as The Canadian Federation of Municipalities, require co-funding,” he explains. “So, we would appreciate support from the provincial government so we can continue to do research and address the needs in those communities in the fields of drinking water and wastewater treatment and sustainable energy.”

Dr. Saady has a network of international, national, and local collaborations with partners from India, Mexico, Iraq, and France. Internationally, he collaborates with Dr. Ponnusami V. from SASTRA Deemed University, India; Dr. Pritha Chatterjee from the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad; Dr. Juan Enrique Ruiz Espinoza from the Autonomous University of Yucatan, Mexico; and Dr. Talib M. Albayati from the University of Technology, Iraq. He also collaborates with researchers across Canada such as Dr. Bassim Abbassi from the Ontario Rural Wastewater Centre at the University of Guelph and Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal from Sherbrooke Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Quebec. At Memorial, Dr. Saady collaborates with several researchers including Dr. Carlos Bazan from the Faculty of Business, and Dr. Sohrab Zendehboudi from the Faculty of Engineering.

Dr. Saady has received more than $275,000 in funding from NSERC; the provincial Department

Dr. Noori Saady (B.Sc., M.Sc. (University of Technology, Iraq), PhD (University of Windsor, Ontario), P.Eng.) worked for both government and private industry (Sherbrooke, Quebec) before joining Memorial in 2016. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and has presented at 18 international conferences in Canada, the U.S.A. and India.

Dr. Saady’s research encompasses water and wastewater physical/ chemical and biological treatment processes, advanced oxidation processes for water treatment (UV and ozonation), groundwater pollution assessment, contaminated site remediation, bioremediation and modeling, cold-environment biotechnology for sustainable waste treatment, livestock manure management, anaerobic digestion of livestock manure at cold and/or arid conditions, nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorus) management in livestock waste, on-farm waste-to-bioenergy project development, and value-added chemicals, fate of manure-laden emerging contaminants (antibiotics, growth promoters, and pharmaceuticals) during waste biological treatment, molecular biology applications to environmental biotechnologies, psychrophilic lignolytic fungal activity for lignocellulosic biomass hydrolysis, kinetic, metabolic, and statistical modeling of bioprocesses, bioreactor engineering for waste treatment, bioelectrochemistry (Microbial fuel cell).

of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture through the Canadian Agriculture Partnership; Mitacs; and The Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development MMSB Waste Management Applied Research Fund.

“Biogas, drinking water treatment and wastewater monitoring are extremely important areas in Newfoundland and Labrador. I am hoping for even more collaboration as I’d like to train more students in these areas. There’s great potential for this research in serving local communities.”

“In the lab, we are developing signal processing and machine learning algorithms to cancel the selfinterference in full-duplex systems.”

— Dr. Octavia A. Dobre

Spectral efficiency and latency and what they mean for 6G cellular networks

Engineering researcher advances wireless technology

DR. OCTAVIA A. DOBRE

In recent years, the number of cell phone users has been increasing exponentially, and services like AR (Augmented Reality – like Pokemon Go) and VR (Virtual Reality – think goggles and headgear) have become commonplace. Not only that, but the next generation of cellular networks (6G) is expected to provide the metaverse service, a computergenerated replica of the real world which will allow collaboration in virtual and augmented spaces.

Dr. Octavia A. Dobre, interim dean in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, along with thousands of researchers across the globe, has been feverishly working on communication technologies to support the demands of these new devices and services. Leading Memorial’s Advanced Research Lab for Optical and Wireless Communications (MARLOWC), Dr. Dobre has been collaborating with the telecom industry to develop enabling technologies for the 6G cellular networks.

Together with her team, which currently includes four postdoctoral fellows, three master’s and seven PhD students, Dr. Dobre has been working on techniques to enhance the transmission speed over a particular bandwidth—referred to as spectral efficiency, to minimize the transmission latency and decrease the energy consumption.

To this end, one of the research directions of Dr. Dobre’s group is to advance the technology of communicating between a cell phone and a cell tower, by enabling simultaneous transmission in the same frequency—known as full-duplex transmission. This way, the scarce spectrum resources will be more efficiently utilized and the transmission latency will be reduced, which is essential for the aforementioned emerging services.

“Currently, half-duplex transmission is used, which means that messages are transmitted and received between a cell phone and cell tower using different

frequencies or time slots,” explains Dr. Dobre, who is also a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, cross-appointed to the Department of Computer Science. “In a half-duplex transmission, the resource utilization is not efficient. Thus, the push to move to full-duplex transmission because transmitting at the same time on the same frequency theoretically doubles the spectral efficiency and reduces the communication latency.”

To understand full-duplex communication, imagine that you and a friend are talking with each other at the same time. The common frequency in this scenario is audio or voice frequency. The purpose for each of you is to transmit a message, but also to receive the information from the other person. It is challenging to hear what the other person says when you talk at the same time, as your voice interferes with the received information—this is referred to as self-interference. Now, imagine you raise your voice in the hopes that the other person will hear you better—basically, you are increasing the transmit power; however, your reception from the other person will further deteriorate. In other words, the self-interference will increase and will degrade your reception. The same concept applies for the communication between a cell phone and a cell tower; they play the role of the two people, although they work in frequencies a thousand or million times higher than the audio ones.

Also, imagine if you and your friend are moving around while talking to each other, for example, you’re in the process of entering a room or running towards or away from your friend. Basically, the environment between the two of you changes and you will need to adjust your voice in the hope that you will hear each other. It is the same for a cell phone and a tower. The environment between them changes, and will affect the parameters of the transmitted signal, and consequently, the self-interference. Still, communication with the required quality-of-service will need to happen between the cell phone and

Experimenting with new optical communication technologies to enable the transport of the massive digital traffic at long distances.

Memorial Advanced Research Laboratory for Optical and Wireless Communications

Group back row left to right:

Dr. Ahmad ElBanna

Quang Le

Mohamed S. Elsayed

Mohamed Al-Nahhal

Mirvala Sadrafshari

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Nahhal

The next row, left to right:

Alice Faisal

Nathanael Danso-Ntiamoah

Prof. Octavia Dobre

Aseni C. Jayarathne

Minh Anh Le

Dr. Waddah Saif

tower, as nobody wants the call to drop, or the video not to be downloaded or the text not to be sent.

“Providing services to users in a full-duplex system is not an easy task,” says Dr. Dobre. “First and foremost, the self-interference needs to be cancelled. To understand this, let’s go back to our example of you and your friend talking with each other at the same time. If your brain can somehow remove or cancel the self-interference, you can successfully receive the information from your friend. In the case of a tower and cell phone, algorithms need to be implemented to cancel the self-interference.

“In the lab, we are developing signal processing and machine learning algorithms to cancel the self-interference in full-duplex systems. We are interested in the performance of the algorithms, i.e., to reduce the power of the self-interference signal to be able to

recover the received information. We need to investigate the complexity of the solutions as well, as there is almost always a trade-off between performance and complexity. We use data from industry to confirm the practical applicability of the developed solutions.”

Although Dr. Dobre’s group focuses on developing machine learning techniques to solve various problems in cellular networks, including cancelling the self-interference, their research is not limited to terrestrial wireless communications.

“We also study underwater, optical, and aerial wireless communications. Underwater communications are particularly challenging due to the propagation environment. To communicate at distance, we use acoustic frequencies, characterized by very low bandwidth and high transmission latency. Planet Earth is covered with over seventy per cent water, and yet, we

have a lot to learn, especially in ocean environments. If we can master underwater communications, this will greatly enhance our knowledge base and help monitor for natural disasters and marine security.”

If we can master underwater communications, this will greatly enhance our knowledge base and help monitor for natural disasters and marine security.

For optical communications, Dr. Dobre’s group has partnered with the Universities of Toronto, British Columbia and Dalhousie to develop methods to mitigate the non-linearity effects in the optical fibre in high-speed long-haul networks, as well as for monitoring the quality of the communication link in order to adapt the parameters of transmission. This project is also funded by the telecom industry and is important to future optical networks to support the significant data traffic, especially with the evolution of wireless networks toward 6G.

Related to aerial communications, Dr. Dobre’s team collaborates with the Universities of Calgary, Manitoba, Alberta and Toronto on a project with the Department of National Defence and eleven industry partners. The project aims to provide solutions for the joint command, control and communications of swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles within the Internet-of-Things framework, by leveraging artificial intelligence. The project is part of the Canadian initiative for Faster, Stronger, More Secure: Advancing 5G Capabilities and Concepts for Defence and Security.

In her research work, Dr. Dobre and her team have collaborated with private industry including Allen Vanguard, DTA Systems, Equinor, ThinkRF and other companies, as well as with governmental organizations, such as Communications Research Centre, Defence Research and Development Canada and Department of National Defence. Their research has attracted more than $16 million in funding.

Dr. Dobre and her team’s research findings have been published in around 450 papers, which have received over 16,000 citations.

“Our research is at the forefront of technological innovation, with significant impact on industry and society. In our lab, we have trained over 100 highly qualified personnel, who have joined industry or academia, further contributing to the technological advances in the fast-changing field of communications.”

Dr. Octavia A. Dobre is a professor and interim dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. Since 2015, she has taught courses on digital, wireless and optical communications, as well as communication networks. Before coming to Memorial, Dr. Dobre worked at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, USA, and Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania. She was a Fulbright Scholar and a visiting professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Dobre is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), as well as an elected member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

What does the future hold for Dr. Dobre and her team?

“We are currently preparing a patent application related to our work on self-interference cancellation in full-duplex systems. We hope that within another year or two, we can come up with machine learning techniques for self-interference cancellation that can be implemented in cellular towers. The challenge is to make sure our solutions are performant, low complex, as well as easy to implement and integrate.”

“We are also exploring integration of communication, computing, sensing, and machine learning, which is certainly very challenging. It is conceived that future cellular networks will include sensing functionality, supporting the provisioning of the required communication and computing services to the vast number of connected devices and enabling various emerging applications like smart manufacturing and connected vehicles.

Collaboration + Degradation = Successful Career

Engineering researcher goes where no Memorial researcher has gone before

DR. SAM NAKHLA

Dr. Sam Nakhla, associate professor and Deputy Department Head of Teaching and Learning in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has made a career of examining failure.

Since he joined Memorial in 2013, his research has involved the study of aging, degradation, and failure of structures in harsh and extreme environments, from aircraft and space technology to oil and gas structures to within the human body.

“My research has one common theme – to understand aging and degradation to determine how and when structures may fail. With this information, we can design structures in ways better suited to their particular environments.”

This is the main lesson Dr. Nakhla, who is cross-appointed to Memorial’s Faculty of Medicine (emergency medicine), hopes to pass on to Memorial students.

“My focus is on students and their learning,” says Dr. Nakhla, who was presented the Engineering Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision in 2022. “I feel I am indirectly building industry by supplying well-educated and prepared students.”

How does he do this?

“I help them find their niche,” he says. “My ultimate goal is transferring knowledge to others so they can succeed. It brings me the greatest satisfaction when one of my students gets an interview with a company like Tesla. They come back and tell me the interview questions were about concepts we discussed and mastered in the classroom. As a result, they end up getting job offers which I celebrate with them.”

Let’s look at some of the collaborations Dr. Nakhla and his students are involved in, with industry, in asset integrity by studying aging and its effect on the

Dr. Sam Nakhla with Dr. Ahmed Elruby, failure analyses of structures and the design of morphing wings

remaining life of structures and accurate prediction of potential failures.

“Failure and damage are observed on the macro level,” explains Dr. Nakhla. “…on the level of a structure, from an aircraft structure to space structure to oil and gas pipe to an aortic artery inside the human body. So, although my research is applied to major areas - space and aircraft structures, oil and gas and healthcare, the common theme among these is aging, deterioration and failure prediction. Simply, I apply the same concepts to various fields.”

Collaboration #1 Suncor – Oil and Gas

In Dr. Nakhla’s collaboration with Suncor, he and his team look at harsh environments in the oil and gas industry, and how exposure to a souring gas environment affects mechanical behavior and failure of production assets.

“They are interested in protecting, of course their people, but also their production assets and assuaging worries of blowouts,” says Dr. Nakhla “Suncor indicated that their observations from the production site were inconsistent with research based on the standards proposed by the National Association of Corrosion Engineers,” Dr. Nakhla explains. “The most critical aspect of a souring gas environment at high temperature and pressure is the generation of atomic hydrogen. The effect of exposure to atomic hydrogen was replicated in the lab by conducting a hydrogen charging experiment. X-ray computed tomography was used to assess steel samples pre- and posthydrogen charging, documenting significant increase in metal porosity. Later, metal porosity was employed to develop novel failure criterion and prediction algorithms appropriate for Suncor steels.

The overarching outcome of lab experiments combined with developed failure criteria enabled accurate and detailed explanations of Suncor’s observations,” said Dr. Nakhla, emphasizing that discrepancies were caused by overlooking the effect of hydrogen on structural aging and deterioration, as well as lack of analytical and numerical tools to predict failure. “In brief, brittle failure of ductile steel is caused by the environment.”

Collaboration #2 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center - Aerospace

With the success of research in oil and gas harsh environments, Dr. Nakhla motivated his research team to explore further avenues in extreme environments, such as space. This was a natural progression, considering Dr. Nakhla is primarily an aerospace engineer.

It all started with studying the oxygen sputtering of space structures in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Sputtering occurs when atomic oxygen collides with a structure ejecting microscopic particles from the structure’s surface, a challenge experienced by the International Space Station (ISS) which hurtles through space at 7.66 km/s allowing atomic oxygen to collide with its metallic and composite external structures.

Dr. Nakhla encouraged his students to present their findings on oxygen sputter in LEO and participate in the Symposium on Space Innovations, held annually at his alma mater, Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Their work on tracking damage of metals in LEO received honorable mention at the 2019 symposium. This success resulted in a first-time collaboration in space research between Memorial and NASA, in which researchers at Memorial and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, near Washington, D.C., began focusing on the effects of solar wind (SW) on planetary surfaces, for example, regolith on the moon and Mars.

In simpler terms, this collaboration focuses on developing accurate methods to track silicate substrate, or regolith, damage and diffusion/ retention of atomic hydrogen from the SW for the potential of water production. Currently, Dr. Nakhla is focusing on methods that benefit future stages of the Artemis project in relation to lunar habitat.

Morphing Wing for Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAV)

Dr. Nakhla’s morphing wing research also aligns with NASA’s initiative, particularly the morphing wing project conducted at the NASA Langley Research Center. Together with his team, Dr. Nakhla used carbon fibre composites to design a wing

Dr. Sam Nakhla with Dr. Liam Morrissey, atomic Oxygen in LEO and solar wind on planetary surface

that changes shape according to different flight maneuvers, i.e. morphing wing.

In their design, they succeeded in achieving similar geometrically stable shapes as the wing originally developed by NASA Langley for UAVs.

“The use of carbon fibre composites presents superior advantages beyond mere weight savings,” says Dr. Nakhla. “…namely, bistable characteristics, which minimize demands and requirements on actuation energy of the wing. This work is continually advancing with objectives to utilize the advantage of bistable composites over a wider spectrum of applications.”

Collaboration #3 Bombardier

In order to answer the question as to whether cladding, the thin metallic coating on an airframe, should continue to be used, Dr. Nakhla and Dr. Shirokoff, studied the effects of metal cladding on mechanical failure of airframe structures.

“Together, with my late colleague Dr. Shirokoff, we studied amphibious airplanes and the effects of salt water on airframe corrosion. In my share of this research, I focused on corrosion prevention techniques with my team.”

“Existing research findings and industry practices have provided some supportive evidence as well as

other opposing ones to cladding, dominantly based on corrosion alone. In our study we developed an accurate modeling technique, which enables us to identify critical geometric and mechanical parameters through which cladding can be studied to identify critical requirements and benefits towards both mechanical performance and corrosion of the airframe. For example, our technique enables identifying the cladding thickness sufficient for corrosion protection without compromising the mechanical characteristics and failure limits of the structure.”

Collaboration with the Memorial University Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Nakhla collaborates with the Faculty of Medicine in many areas such as surgery planning and training as well as developing a better understanding of conditions that lead to rupture of an aortic aneurism.

“Based on our experience with Suncor and NASA research on metals and composites, and also our research based on bistable composites, we concluded that defects and imperfections dominate mechanical response of structures. Without a doubt, considering different environments, similar factors influence the aortic artery,” says Dr. Nakhla. “Because an abdominal aortic aneurysm, or AAA, is asymptomatic with only the potential of slight symptoms similar to heartburn right before rupture, it is essential to develop an understanding of the causes of AAA leading to its development and rupture.”

Dr. Sam Nakhla with Stephen Handrigan Handrigan discussing defects and their effects on mechanical behavior of materials

“In the laboratory, we developed an experimental technique to study the effect of changes in arterial wall thickness on aneurysm development. Wall thinning is proven to be a factor among many others contributing towards aneurysm formation, growth and bursting. Efforts are underway to consider arterial tissue deterioration and aging. This will lead to stronger collaboration with medicine professionals and more discoveries at Memorial.”

“Wall thinning of the aorta is another example of aging, deterioration and failure; it follows the same concepts as industrial deterioration and failure but in a different environment,” says Dr. Nakhla “The genuine sense of discovery is what’s exciting about this research. It has enabled me to solve challenges for industry, like Suncor and Bombardier; it has opened the door for collaboration with NASA; and it has resulted in my collaboration with medicine. By simply solving a series of open-ended problems, where solving one leads to another, I am guaranteed a lifetime of being busy.”

Students are impetus to keep investigating every single day

“My students are like my children,” says Dr. Nakhla, who enjoys celebrating their successes. “Aristotle said, Teachers, who educate children, deserve more honor than parents, who merely gave them birth.”

Some of Dr. Nakhla’s students are now his colleagues; his first PhD student, Dr. Ahmed Elruby, is currently an assistant professor of solid mechanics at Memorial. He is the one who developed advanced methods on predicting failure applicable across different materials. Dr. Elruby is also Dr. Nakhla’s collaborator on bistable structures and morphing wing design.

A second PhD student of Dr. Nakhla, Dr. Liam Morrissey, is currently an assistant professor of material engineering at Memorial. His research on space structures guaranteed him postdoctoral experience at the Catholic University of America and further collaboration with NASA Goddard.

A third student, Mr. Stephen Handrigan, who will soon complete his PhD, is wrapping up his research on molecular and micro-scale defects and their effects on mechanical behavior of structures. “It is of great value to me to see that combining the work of my current and former students. For example Dr. Elruby with Mr. Handrigan, has the potential of leading to new discoveries,” says Dr. Nakhla. “It is always my job as academic supervisor to step back to see the bigger picture; then plan research directions and methods, as well as potential collaboration within my team.”

Dr. Nakhla is an associate professor of mechanical engineering, cross-appointed to emergency medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University. He received his graduate degrees (MSc, PhD in Aerospace Engineering) from The Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).

Prior to joining Memorial University in 2013, Dr. Nakhla held positions in academia (Georgia Tech) and industry (aircraft maintenance industry and software development at IBM).

His research interests include material degradation and failure analyses for the prediction of remaining life with a focus on their applications in aerospace, mechanical and biomedical engineering

“I am happy to have this role,” he says. “Before coming to Memorial, I received offers from industry. I picked Memorial because of the wider spectrum of audience. Choosing industry would have limited my contribution to my company’s stakeholders. As a professor, my contributions go straight to the stakeholders; my students and their families.”

Dr. Nakhla attributes his success to the encouragement he received from his mother and has always promoted the role of women in research. “I named my research team after the 19th century French scientist, Sophie Germain, who made the first attempt to develop plate theory in the early 1800s. The concepts she developed were scientifically sound and her mathematical theory was advanced by two other scientists in the late 1800s. My research team is called the Germain Lab for Advanced Structures or GLAS. We have two facilities, The Asset Integrity Lab and the Composites Manufacturing Lab in the engineering building.”

SmartBrain: Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs)

Memorial researcher monitors brain activity to help non-verbal people with motor disorders complete tasks without voice commands

The electroencephalogram, or a version of it, has been around since the 1920s, allowing researchers to record brain waves using small electrodes attached to the scalp. In the 1970s research began on establishing direct communication between the brain and an external device, and the term, brain-computer interface (BCI), was coined. The first real BCI studies on humans were conducted in the late 1980s, and since then, it has been a growing field.

Here at Memorial University, Dr. Sarah Power, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Division of Community Health and Humanities, has been doing BCI research with her team of graduate students since 2015. She gets excited when she talks about the potential of BCIs in a wide range of applications, from neurorehabilitation to neuromarketing. In fact, if you hooked Dr. Power to an EEG, you would be able to measure her excitement.

DR. SARAH POWER

Mona Hejazi sets up the equipment on Erfan Mansoori for testing.

“Brain-computer interfaces provide a direct means of communication between a person and a computer without using speech or other movement,” says Dr. Power, emphasizing how important this could be to someone with severe motor disabilities, for example someone living with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or MS (multiple sclerosis), who may have no other reliable way to communicate or interact with their environment.

If a person can speak, there are voice-activated technologies available, but if they are non-verbal, it’s a whole different challenge.

Controlling a computer with just your thoughts may sound like science fiction, but it’s reality.

“The original motivation for BCI technology was for people with locked-in syndrome (LIS), a rare neurological condition characterized by complete, or near-complete, paralysis of voluntary muscles. For example, this can occur in late-stage ALS, also known as Lou Gerig’s disease,” explains Dr. Power. “Maintaining communication in disorders leading to LIS can significantly improve quality of life. Patients can retain some independence, and autonomy. This is so important.”

Controlling a computer with just your thoughts may sound like science fiction, but it’s reality.

However, BCI technology is not at the point where a person can just think of anything and it can be decoded.

“Don’t worry, we can’t read your mind,” says Dr. Power.

Active BCIs

Rather, in what are termed “active BCIs”, the BCI is trained to recognize a set of distinct mental states, or specific patterns of brain activity. These states are associated with different output commands. When the user wishes to send a command to their computer, they must intentionally (or actively) control their brain activity to produce the appropriate mental state. In real-time, the BCI captures the user’s brain activity, decodes the mental state, and outputs the desired command to the computer.

Often, tasks are used to help the user generate the required mental states. Some common tasks involve the imagination of movement of large body parts, or

doing things like math or word tasks in their heads. For example, a person might imagine moving their right hand to right-click on a computer mouse, and imagine moving their feet to click a space bar.

“We use machine learning algorithms to classify signals from the brain and determine which task the user is thinking of, and link them to commands,” says Dr. Power. “We collect a lot of training data upfront. We put electrodes on a person’s scalp and get them to perform the different tasks. The person will do a number of different trials of each of the tasks to train the system.”

While the field of BCIs has advanced in leaps and bounds over the past few decades, significant challenges must be overcome before the technology sees widespread use by the target population. For example, because EEG signals are so different from person to person, and can even change significantly within a person over short periods of time, usually new training data must be collected to calibrate the BCI each time someone uses it. This can be timeconsuming and frustrating for the user. Also, at present only about four different states at a time can be reliably detected using EEG, which limits the number of commands the user can send.

These are the types of problems that Dr. Power and her team, which currently includes two PhD and six master’s students, are working to address. “One of my master’s students, Hadi Mohammadpour, has just submitted a paper describing how he was able to classify six different mental tasks with quite good accuracy. Further work is needed, but these results are very promising”.

Active BCIs are not only for communication, explains Dr. Power. “I think that perhaps the most exciting possibility for BCIs is their potential use in neurorehabilitation – specifically the treatment of motor and functional deficits due to neurological disorders like stroke, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. In fact, studies have reported stroke patients regaining movement in a paralyzed hand after undergoing training with active BCI.”

How is this possible? The answer lies in the brain’s plasticity – its ability to rewire in response to internal or external stimuli.

If a patient has lost motor function in their hand due to damage to the part of the brain that controls hand movement, then BCIs can be used to help the brain reorganize so that a healthy part of the brain takes over. When the patient imagines moving their

paralyzed hand, or attempts to move their hand, their EEG signals are captured, and the associated activity is detected. The patient is then provided with meaningful neurofeedback of this brain activity – for example, the muscles controlling the hand may be stimulated causing the hand to actually move. With many repetitions, where the user’s attempt to move is associated with actual hand movement with the help of the BCI, re-wiring of the neural circuitry can occur, and movement can eventually be restored. This is based on a concept called Hebbian Learning, whose founder, Canadian psychologist Dr. Donald Hebb is often considered the father of neuropsychology. “Neurons that fire together, wire together,” he famously said, meaning that pathways in the brain can be formed and reinforced through repetition.

“The potential of BCIs for neurorehabilitation is being actively studied in stroke, but has not yet been considered in neurodegenerative disorders. One of my PhD students, Mona Hejazi, is currently looking into applying BCIs for improving hand dexterity in patients with MS.” This work is being done in collaboration with Dr. Michelle Ploughman, a physiotherapist and neuroscientist in the Faculty of Medicine.

“Rehab, health, quality of life; these are the applications I get most excited about,” says Dr. Power, who enjoys her collaborations with other researchers. “BCI is such a growing field, and has so many potential applications, but it’s also such a complex problem. We are always asking: What if? If no one is looking at a particular problem; we do it. Our contributions are propelling the field forward.”

BCIs are not only for the healthcare realm, however. Given all the progress that has been made in the decades of BCI research, researchers in the field have been looking for new areas to apply what has been

learned. This includes for users with and without disabilities, and in an extremely wide range of applications. Most of these BCIs fall into the category of ‘passive BCIs’.

Active vs Passive BCIs

While active BCIs involve detecting mental states that the user is generating intentionally, for the purpose of controlling an external device in a particular way, passive BCIs involve detecting spontaneously occurring mental states the user is experiencing while engaged in some activity. These mental states can be things like stress, cognitive workload, or fatigue. Once the different states are detected, the information is used to change the user’s environment in some useful way.

Mental workload detection in aircraft pilots, for example– if an unsafe level of workload is detected, the BCI could send a command to have the autopilot kick in. Or fatigue detection in long haul truckers – if a state of drowsiness is detected, the BCI could have an alarm sound to tell the driver to pull in and take a rest. Or optimizing the experience of video gaming – when states of boredom or frustration are detected, the game conditions could change accordingly.

“The possible applications of passive BCIs are endless,” says Dr. Power. “Many studies are being done in the area of passive BCI to detect various emotions, stress and other states in isolation, but as far as I know, our work, which is funded by NSERC, is the first to look at detecting various states at the same time. Specifically we are looking at workload and stress simultaneously.”

This is important because in real-life situations, a person experiences many different states at the same time, and these states are varying. For example, if someone is experiencing high workload in a given

From left to right – Erfan Mansoori, Jacob White, Hadi Mohammadpour, Dr. Sarah Power, Mahdi Moeini, Mona Hejazi, Bijan Roudini (missing from photo: Faghihe Massaeli).

situation, they could be very calm about it or they could be panicking. If we want to be able to reliably detect workload under both of these conditions, then we need to consider the effect of different stress states when developing the detection algorithms. Dr. Power’s team conducted a study where EEG signals were recorded from research participants as their levels of both workload and stress were varied.

The participants did many trials of a task, solving math problems in their head, at varying levels of difficulty. They did the trials first in a relaxed state, and then under experimentally-induced stress.

“Through this study, which was led by one of my PhD students, Mahsa Bagheri, we developed algorithms to allow us to detect a participant’s stress level and workload level at the same time.”

Another PhD student, Faghihe Massaeli, is looking at detecting not just the level of mental workload, but also the type of mental workload the person is experiencing – specifically, are primarily visual or auditory resources being used? This study, also funded by NSERC, involves a BCI that is able to determine this additional information allowing it to make more appropriate adjustments to the environment. For example, if the BCI detected that the aircraft pilot was in a state of high mental workload and that they were performing primarily visual tasks, then the BCI could cause some information to be presented aurally instead.

“One significant challenge in these types of experiments is the variability of brain activity in various participants. We use a standard protocol to induce the different states of interest – stress, or workload, or whatever - in all participants, but everyone will experience it differently. What one person finds very stressful, another may not. Math problems one person finds very difficult may be easy for someone else. We need to find ways to confirm that the different states were induced as intended,” says Dr. Power, who also has equipment for detecting heart rate (ECG) and galvanic skin response (GSR).

Another challenge is the time it takes to conduct these types of experiments.

“First, we have to carefully design a study, making sure we will collect the right data, and under the right conditions, to actually answer the question we set out to answer. The next step is the ethics application process. For every experiment we do involving human participants, we need to have the study protocol approved by the Interdisciplinary Committee on Ethics in Human Research (ICEHR), the research

Dr. Sarah Power is an associate professor at Memorial University jointly appointed to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Division of Community Health and Humanities in the Faculty of Medicine. Before joining Memorial as an assistant professor in 2015, she completed degrees in electrical engineering (B.Eng., Memorial University, 2006; M.A.Sc., University of Toronto, 2008), and biomedical engineering (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 2012). Her main research interests are in the design and application of EEG-based brain-computer interfaces in rehabilitation and neuroergonomics applications.

ethics board here at Memorial. Then, we begin collecting data from twenty to thirty people. This can take months to complete,” says Dr. Power, adding how grateful they are to all the research participants who volunteer their time. “Then, of course, we have to analyze the data we’ve collected and develop the detection algorithms.”

“Besides my BCI work with engineering and medicine, I am also collaborating with Dr. Andrew Staniland, founder of MEARL (Memorial ElectroAcoustic Research Lab) in the Faculty of Music. We’re currently recruiting a master’s student with funding through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) to do a project related to BCIs and improvisation. We are not exactly sure what this will look like yet, but I am excited to pursue a project combining BCIs with music.”

Dr. Power and her team are showing no signs of slowing down.

“We’re looking at the human brain, I can’t imagine a more complex system,” she says. “That’s what makes my collaborations so enjoyable; the applications for our research are endless.”

Surface engineering excites Memorial’s newest engineering researcher

DR. SIMA A. ALIDOKHT

Dr. Sima A. Alidokht, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is passionate about surface engineering and hopes to build her own research program around it.

After completing her master’s in Iran, Dr. Alidokht graduated in 2018 with her PhD at McGill University where she was also a lecturer and research associate. She joined Memorial University, Mechanical Engineering department in April 2022.

“When I first came to campus and met faculty members and visited labs, I quickly realized that surface engineering for harsh environments is one of the priorities for this university and this province.”

After meeting Drs. George Mann, Yuri Muzychka and Ting Zou, Dr. Alidokht knew this placement would help her realize her dreams.

“Surface engineering is very impactful here; it hugely affects the economy, social behaviour, sustainability and the environment,” she says.

With the start-up grant that Memorial provides to new hires, Dr. Alidokht is getting settled.

In July, thanks to funding from Memorial’s Seed, Bridge and Multidisciplinary fund, she should have an undergrad intern working with her and hopes to get PhD students on her team very soon. In broad terms, Dr. Alidokht’s main research interests are surface engineering and advanced manufacturing. More specifically, she will work on identifying new material options for tribological materials in harsh and extreme conditions.

Tribology is the study of friction, wear and lubrication, and involves the motion of interacting surfaces. Tribological materials are used in applications where friction, wear, and lubrication are important considerations, for example in local

industries such as offshore oil and gas which works daily with large vessels, mooring lines, cranes and hoisting systems, risers and other drilling equipment in harsh environments.

Surface engineering is very impactful here; it hugely affects the economy, social behaviour, sustainability and the environment

“My focus is on these solid mechanical parts moving against each other. I want to develop and test new coatings to reduce tribo-corrosion which occurs when moving mechanical components are in sea water, for example.”

Key components of offshore oil and gas systems typically have sliding bearing or sealing surfaces that are exposed to wear in an offshore corrosive environment. This can lead to significant materials damage and premature failure, which comes with large annual repair and maintenance costs. Not only that, but it also poses significant safety risks and could cause serious environmental contamination if failures occur.

“To reduce these risks, I am designing, developing and testing materials that can withstand tribological loading in harsh and extreme environments, which are defined as those that expose mechanical systems to extreme temperature, high pressures, corrosive media, and vacuum,” explains Dr. Alidokht. “These can be found in marine, space, nuclear, and thermal power industries, and even in human bodies.”

“Lubrication is an important consideration,” says Dr. Alidokht. “My research will provide solutions to

these challenges by developing and engineering sustainable tribological coatings using new material options and innovative strategies. I hope to develop innovative materials for use in harsh and extreme environments where mechanical systems are exposed to extreme high and low temperatures. The goal is to design, and test new materials that can be used in these environments.”

“I am working on welding and additive manufacturing as well,” says Dr. Alidokht.

While other researchers simulate harsh conditions in HERF (Harsh Environment Research Facility), specifically ice, and perform large-scale tests, I hope to help them by developing and testing materials they can use. My main focus is on metallic, ceramic and their composites but I hope to expand my research to include polymers as well.”

Many different industries can benefit from this research and research results have the potential to make a huge contribution to environmental protection and safety of employees and assets by preventing leaks, spills and blowout in the oil and gas industry, for example. Because tribology coatings can be added to already existing equipment, postponing damage from friction and wear, industries won’t have to replace equipment as often, leading to more reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

“The most exciting aspect of this research is its widereaching impact,” she says. “When I arrived at Memorial and became familiar with the province and local industries’ needs, I knew this was the place for me.”

Dr. Sima Alidokht was born and raised in Azerbaijan province, Iran. She completed her bachelor’s degree on Materials Science and Engineering with a focus on Extractive Metallurgy. She attended Tarbiat Modares University for a master’s program, where she worked on surface modification and tribology of cast Al alloys and hybrid AlSiC-MoS2 composite coatings.

In 2014, she went to McGill university to begin her PhD studies which involved understanding cold spray deposition mechanism of Ni-WC composite coatings and their sliding and erosive wear behaviour. She defended her PhD dissertation in June 2018 and started her postdoctoral fellowship. Her primary work was on surface engineering of advanced self-lubricating composite coatings as well as lifecycle improvement of super-abrasive composite coatings.

In 2018, Dr. Alidokht was appointed research associate in Surface Engineering and Coating Tribology Laboratory at McGill University, where she developed cold spray repair technologies for Titanium components. She also designed and developed erosion-resistant coatings based on high entropy alloys in simulated planetary environments in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency.

In April 2022, she joined Memorial’s Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering as an assistant professor. Her primary research interests include design, development, and testing of tribo-corrosion resistant coatings, multi-principal element alloys processing and characterizations, smart materials-based protective coatings, erosion-resistant coatings for space applications, and duplex surface engineering.

Facility Spotlight

The Northern Region Persistent Organic Pollution Control Laboratory (NRPOP Lab)

Memorial engineering lab helps mitigate contamination caused by persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and emerging contaminants (ECs)

The Northern Region Persistent Organic Pollution Control Laboratory (NRPOP Lab) is the first of its kind in Canada to specialize in the removal of persistent and emerging contaminants, as well as the mitigation of inland and marine oil spills. The lab has been recognized worldwide for its pioneering research on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and emerging contaminants (ECs) in cold regions and harsh marine environments.

“POPs and ECs are usually synthetic organic compounds which do not break down easily in the environment,” says Dr. Bing Chen, founding director of NRPOP and chair professor in the Department of Civil Engineering. “They are also bio-accumulative and carcinogenic or toxic to human beings and wildlife. Although many of these compounds have been banned for decades, they still exist in the environment, found in things like pesticides, petroleum hydrocarbons (e.g., PAHs), flame retardants, disinfection by-products (DBPs), pharmaceutical and cosmetic products (PPCPs), micro/nano-plastics, and engineered nanoparticles. Our goal in the lab is to use both experimental and model approaches to gain a better understanding of the transport, fate and effect of these contaminants and help both industry and governments improve practices to mitigate the relevant environmental problems.”

“One of our key focuses is on cold regions and harsh environments,” says Dr. Chen, who has (co-)authored more than 500 technical publications including over 180 refereed journal papers. “For POP/EC studies and especially oil spill research, our lab is probably the most comprehensive and advanced

academic facility in the country, offering hardware and software to support research and training on transport/fate simulation – batch/bench/pilot-scales; impact/risk analysis; field monitoring and sampling; instrumental analysis – physical, chemical and biological; and pollution mitigation. We’ve spent more than fifteen years getting to this stage.”

A unique feature of the lab is researchers have the full capacity to investigate oil spills in the ocean as well as on land. For marine environments, once oil is spilled, it is dispersed and weathered. These two stages are what NRPOP’s research has been focusing on. Dr. Chen, Dr. Baiyu (Helen) Zhang, and their students conduct experiments to purify and isolate certain microbial strains and then use them to generate green solutions such as oil spill treating agents or biosurfactants.

“Rather than introduce something new into the environment, we use indigenous microorganisms to consume spilled oil that is left behind after a spill. The biosurfactants we use are non-toxic; they are things already found and produced by microorganisms in nature and are fully biodegradable,” explains Dr. Chen. “The biodegradation becomes the most important part of remediation and in the lab, we attempt to understand and speed up that process under different conditions.”

In a marine environment, there can be many other contaminants besides oil. Microplastics, for example, are showing up in the food chain. To study microplastics, more data is needed, like particle size distribution and weathering process. The NRPOP Lab has the capability to detect and analyze microplastics from water.

DR. BING CHEN

Dr. Chen and his team, and with research from the late Dr. Tahir Hussain, have developed two new water-oil separation technologies based on enhanced oxidation and filtration that can separate water from effluent offshore, meeting international standards. For example, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) standard for oil content in effluent water must be ≤ 15ppm. The NRPOP Lab can help companies resolve the problem of having to use barges to bring a large quantity of oil-contaminated water after skimming to land for treatment.

“Efficiently treating such water on site instead of shipping it back to shore for disposal saves significant time, barge capacity and money and improves regulators and response organizations’ capability in responding to oil spill incidents,” says Dr. Chen.

How do they accomplish this?

With very specialized equipment.

“The NRPOP Lab would not exist if not for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Industrial Research and Innovation Fund (IRIF),” says Dr. Chen. “These funding organizations have allowed us to purchase the equipment necessary to study and mitigate the release of pollutants, especially from the petroleum, chemical, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and shipping industries.”

That equipment includes advanced analytical instruments such as GC-MS, GC-MS/MS, GC-FID/ECD/ TCD, HPLC-MS/MS, flash chromatography, AAS, TPH

analyzer, TOC analyzer, UV-vis spectrophotometer, AES, AFM, viscometer, drop shape analyzer, and contact angle goniometer.

Those names might not resonate with people outside the field, but suffice to say, they are exciting for those within.

“What is unique about the NRPOP lab is it combines traditional environmental engineering research with nanotechnology and biotechnology to help mitigate the risks of these POPs and ECs in both terrestrial and marine environments,” explains Dr. Chen. “We are so lucky here at Memorial to have a team of excellent researchers and talented master’s and doctoral students and post-doctoral research fellows. We wouldn’t accomplish nearly as much as we do without their contributions and collaboration.”

Dr. Yiqi Cao, a postdoctoral fellow in the NRPOP Lab, is one of the stars of that team. With a PhD in environmental engineering, Dr. Cao led a tour of the NRPOP Lab, showcasing the capabilities of some advanced instruments, like the lab’s second Gas Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS/MS).

“This new machine allows us to identify and quantify the compositions of a test sample with much higher accuracy and reliability,” says Dr. Cao. “It can help separate and analyze even trace-level contaminants from unknown samples.”

“Like humans, each of these advanced machines has its own personality,” adds Dr. Chen, who is also associate dean (graduate studies). “Most labs have

a dedicated technician for GC-MS. In our lab, our students have the opportunity to not only understand all their mechanisms but also learn how to use them and operate them on their own with the support of our lab instructor.”

Dr. Cao was one of those lucky students. “From a training and career development perspective, if students know how to operate an advanced analytical instrument such as GC-MS, employers from government and industry will be very interested in hiring them,” says Dr. Cao. “There are so many labs worldwide that need lab technicians as well as researchers with knowledge and skills in using those instruments.”

“NRPOP lab also offers me an unprecedented opportunity to collaborate with worldwide knowledgeable students, researchers, and professors,” says Dr. Cao. “You will learn a lot of new things and build a strong network with them to facilitate your success.”

What does the future hold?

CFI is also providing funding for a second machine, a submersible laser diffraction particle size analyzer that can capture real-time data and measure size and distribution of particles in water. Along with existing equipment, this new machine will help researchers better understand microplastics and oil contaminants.

“There’s a new lab under renovation; we will move in this year,” says Dr. Chen. “In that lab, we’ll have both a 3.6-metre soil tank and a 14-metre water tank and we’ll be able to simulate the transport and fate of POPs/ECs and performance of mitigation techniques in the ground and water respectively.”

Another new project starting in 2023 is funded by the Northern Contaminants Program (NCP) and based on collaboration with the North Slave Métis Alliance in the Northwest Territories. The project investigates the possible existence and levels of contaminants (Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers or PBDEs) in water and soil. PBDEs have been detected and are causing health concerns in northern Indigenous communities. https:// www.hss.gov.nt.ca/en/services/contaminants-environnementaux/pbdes-polybrominated-diphenyl-ethers

“We will take water, soil and sediment samples in and nearby Great Slave Lake, the deepest lake in North America, which flows into the Mackenzie River Basin, the largest northward flowing river in North America,” says Dr. Chen, who is also UArctic Research Chair in Marine and Coastal Environmental Engineering, a fiveyear appointment which began in 2022. “The river flows into the Beaufort Sea and the rest of the Arctic Ocean.

“This NCP project is just the start. In the long term, we plan to investigate more emerging contaminants such as flame retardants found in walls and appliances and chemical surfactants used in medical and cosmetic products, and figure out ways to reduce and remediate them in the environment. In the current project, we will send a team to Yellowknife to work with locals to collect samples and analyze PBDEs, which is a type of widely recognized ECs with multiple benzine rings and are very persistent to degradation. Many POPs/ECs can take years or decades to break down.”

“Another interesting branch of our research looks at artificial intelligence (AI) and how that can help in environmental decision making such as in oil spill response.” says Dr. Chen. “Our research has so many applications and potentials, it will keep us busy for a very long time. And that’s the way we like it.”

Dr. Yiqi Cao operating the GCMS

Dr. Bing Chen obtained his B.Eng. and M.Sc. from Jilin University and Peking University in China, respectively, as well as his PhD from the University of Regina. He worked as an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia and conducted visiting research with Environment Canada before joining Memorial University in 2006.

He is currently a professor of civil engineering, UArctic Chair in marine and coastal environmental engineering, associate dean (Graduate Studies) of the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, and director of the Northern Region Persistent Organic Pollution Control Laboratory (NRPOP Lab). He is also the founding director of a pan-Canadian and global Network of Persistent, Emerging, and Organic PoLlution in the Environment (PEOPLE Network or NSERC PEOPLE

CREATE Network). He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE), the Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC), and the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE), and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) (College) and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA).

Dr. Chen is an internationally recognized leader in environmental engineering research and applications and particularly in oil spill response and clean-up, persistent and emerging contaminants studies, marine and coastal pollution mitigation, water and wastewater treatment, AI-aided decision making, cold region and climate change studies, and environmental sustainability. He has been a pioneer in developing novel engineering and managerial solutions through integrating environmental engineering with nano-/ bio-technologies and advancing physical and numerical modeling methods. He has acted as PI or Co-PI in over 60 research projects and contracts from diverse sources nationally and internationally. He has authored or co-authored more than 500 technical publications including over 180 refereed journal

papers and three books as well as eight patents/ disclosures. He has supervised or co-supervised more than 300 highly qualified personnel (HQP) including 80 thesis-based graduate students and postdoctoral research fellows. His HQP have received a large number of awards and are well placed in the field of their training in academia, industry, government and NGOs worldwide.

Dr. Chen’s teaching activities mainly focus on environmental systems engineering and management. He is the former chair/advisor of the Environmental Systems Engineering & Management Program, which provides a unique multidisciplinary setting for training and fostering professional engineers and managers who can take a leading role in the understanding and management of air, water and land resource deterioration in a sustainable manner.

He is an affiliated faculty member with University of California Berkeley and has served as senior advisor of UN Development Programme, vice-president of CSCE, vice-president of Canadian Association on Water Quality (CAWQ), editor-in-chief of Environmental Systems Research (Springer), associate editor and editorial board member of 10 refereed journals. As a registered Professional Engineer, he has provided advisory service to governments and industry from environmental/water, oil and gas, petrochemical, shipping, fishing, mining, and agriculture sectors as well as NGOs and communities in Canada and worldwide.

For more information, please visit the NRPOP Lab and the PEOPLE Network.

Selected publications are available: https://www.engr. mun.ca/~bingchen/publications.html

Annual Research Day Poster Contest

On November 24, 2022, the Annual Research Day student contest was able to revert to posters after going with video presentations in 2020 and 2021 during COVID restrictions.

“The video format definitely had its benefits,” say organizers of the event in the Engineering Research Office. “One of the reasons Research Day came into existence was to have students ready for conference season. Most students present posters at these conferences. Plus, the in-person event also gives an opportunity for discussion.”

Dr. Cui Lin, assistant professor in the Department of Process Engineering, had the tough job, along with Drs. Ahmed ElRuby and Liam Morrissey, of judging the thirty-one entries.

“I enjoyed judging the research poster presentation contest, despite the fact it was very difficult,” says Dr. Lin. “All participants did an excellent job. Their passion and confidence in showcasing their research and creativity really impressed me.”

The Winners

First place went to Ms. Roya Sadat Neisan, PhD candidate in civil engineering, for her poster explaining the application of mussel shells to remove arsenic from drinking water.

Arsenic concentrations exceeding federal drinking water guidelines have been found in water supplies in several Newfoundland communities. Long-term exposure to arsenic can increase a person’s chances of getting certain types of cancer, as well as other negative health effects, such as diarrhea, poor blood production, and abnormal heartbeat. As arsenic is not removed by pitcher-type filtration units or boiling, alternate methods are necessary to keep the population safe.

“My research focuses on finding affordable solutions for small communities in Newfoundland and Labrador to remove arsenic from drinking water effectively,” says Ms. Neisan, who is supervised by Drs. Noori Saady and Carlos Bazan. “For this purpose, I am designing a household water treatment system with an arsenic removal cartridge made of mussel shells, which would normally go to the landfill as fisheries waste.”

Ms. Neisan, who saw the research contest not only as a chance to share her research, but also to improve her communication skills and expand her network, is thrilled to have captured the judges’ attention and inspired others to want to know more about what motivates her to follow her research goals.

“My future research goal is to pursue interdisciplinary projects related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in general, specifically SDG 6, or Sustainable Development Goal 6, one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. SDG 6 is to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.”

1st Place

Ms. Yang’s poster, entitled Microplastics Reduce the Efficiency of Oil-Spill Treating Agent in Oceans, illustrates the fact that although microplastics are widespread in oil-polluted oceans, there have been only limited studies to investigate the role of microplastics in offshore oil spill response operations such as dispersant application. Ms. Yang is out to change that.

“My research on the impacts of microplastics on oil dispersant efficiency in the marine environment found that microplastics reduced the efficiency of dispersants due to the formation of microplasticoil-dispersant agglomerates or MODAs,” says Ms. Yang. “And the formed MODAs transported widely in different seawater layers. This study provides essential information to support oil spill response operations with the existence of microplastics in oceans. The knowledge of MODA formation can assist the environmental risk evaluation of MODAs that have been previously overlooked.”

Ms. Yang says she is very honoured to receive this award. “Winning this contest is a recognition of my work and shows that my efforts are following the correct path. It encourages me to pursue my research goals and to be a well-rounded individual. I will continue my research in MODAs, especially their transport and fate in oceans, to help develop practical treatment technologies for marine oil and microplastic pollution control.”

Mr. Shahrul Ibney Feroz, a master’s student in civil engineering, took home third place for his poster describing his project with the city of St John’s under the supervision of Drs. Kamal Hossain and Carlos Bazan.

The project, named Development of Improved Asphalt Mixture for the City of St. John’s, aims to improve roads in the city by reducing rutting and moisture-induced damage. The research looked at the influence of fillers on the creep recovery performance of aged asphalt mastic and asphalt mixture containing modifiers and liquid anti-stripping agents.

In the study, different types of modifiers, antistripping agents, and fillers were added to the existing binder to evaluate the rheological performance of the mastics. This refers to how these mastics react under creep loading and unloading. The non-recoverable creep compliance (Jnr) and percent recovery (R) values are computed from the test results.

For advanced testing of mastics, the samples were sent to Rowan University in New Jersey. Mr. Feroz based his poster upon the partial results obtained from testing. The mixture level tests are ongoing at the asphalt lab at Memorial.

“Participating in any research contest is always exciting,” says Mr. Feroz. “Placing in the contest makes me more confident and dedicated to my research. The poster contest presented an excellent opportunity to share knowledge with other researchers and learn from them. In the future, I plan to join the pavement industry, and after gaining some practical experience in the industry, I hope to start my PhD.”

Honorable Mentions

Two students received honourable mention for their posters:

Mr. Yuhui Song, a PhD student supervised by Drs. Cheng Li and Yuanzhu Chen, won honourable mention for his poster entitled Tensor Based Sparse Bayesian Learning with Intra-Dimension Correlation.

Ms. Sudipta Bhowmick is a master’s student in civil engineering, supervised by Dr. Bipul Hawlader, and also received honourable mention for her research poster on the numerical investigation of stress and strain nonuniformities in a direct simple shear sample.

Second Place went to Ms. Min Yang, PhD candidate in civil engineering studying microplastic-oil interactions in the marine environment.

2nd Place

3rd Place

Industry Engagement Day: Fostering a culture of innovation

Memorial engineers welcome new partnerships with industry

On July 5, 2022 Memorial’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science hosted its first Industry Engagement Day at the Emera Innovation Exchange, Signal Hill Campus. One hundred and twenty delegates representing more than thirty companies and organizations got together to discuss challenges in sectors such as energy, oceans, information and communications, environment and sustainable infrastructure.

“The idea for Industry Engagement Day originated from a desire to foster connections and collaboration between our faculty and industry leaders,” says Dr. Qiu.

Through ten break-out sessions, Memorial researchers were able to get a better idea of what has already been done to tackle certain problems. In turn, members of industry were able to pick the brains of the engineers who are experts in the very fields they find challenging.

“The role of an engineer is to provide solutions to problems,” says Dr. Qiu. “By hearing directly from local companies, we, here at Memorial, now better understand the current challenges they face and we are more prepared to propose research that will lead to solutions.”

Dr. Octavia Dobre, interim dean, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, agrees. “Collaboration is the key to innovation,” she says. “Industry Engagement Day was a huge success. The industry representatives and Memorial researchers were able to exchange ideas and discuss future steps in solving some of industry’s most challenging problems.”

“In the 2020-21 fiscal year, Memorial attracted $10.6 million in funding, seventy per cent of which was provided by the federal government,” said Dr. Dobre, explaining the faculty hopes to increase industry research funding, which currently makes up 12%. Dr. Qui thinks that is possible. “The energy in the room was palpable,” he said. “When industry representatives are able to voice their concerns to people who can understand their challenges, it’s a win-win for all.”

Acting Associate VP Research Dr. Tana Allen said that by identifying new funding partnerships between industry and academia, Memorial can help grow Newfoundland and Labrador’s reputation as an innovation hub, as well as contribute to the provincial economy. “Whether you’re a business or a community member looking to solve a problem, Memorial is here for you.”

The Industry Engagement Day featured four plenary sessions from the shipping; aerospace; oil and gas; and government sectors.

Plenary Sessions

American Bureau of Shipping (ABS)

James Bond, director, Polar Research and Government Business Development, American Bureau of Shipping, provides scholarships for naval architecture and marine engineering students. highlighted the success of the Harsh Environment Technology Centre partnership.

ABS Challenge to Memorial: “Newfoundland and Labrador needs to graduate more naval architects and marine engineers.”

PAL Aerospace

PAL Aerospace, an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) company, employs advanced surveillance techniques that can read a car license plate from 200 km away. They can also successfully predict the location of a drifting 65-foot yacht letting searchers know where yacht will be and when. “We supply data to customers and use aircraft as a tool to collect that data,” said Ben Boehm, senior vice-president, PAL.

PAL employees are very good at what they do, but they still have challenges including a need to reduce aircraft weight. “Every pound of weight means one less pound of fuel means less time in the air,” said Mr. Boehm,. “The challenge to Memorial is to combine everything we do into a product the world wants.”

Mitacs

Mitacs, a not-for-profit national organization that supports businesses that need help by finding skilled people to fill gaps in industry. Dr. John Hepburn, CEO, said Mitacs has offered 20,000 graduate student internships across Canada and a Mitacs survey of Newfoundland and Labrador students and partners showed that those who have completed a Mitacs internship were sixty per cent more likely to stay in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Mitacs has hundreds of collaborations with Memorial. One of their current projects involves soil remediation after an oil seep. They are in the process of developing a system to flush hydrocarbons out of soil, an area in which Memorial engineering researchers have years of experience.

“We want to drive innovation in Newfoundland and Labrador,” says Mr. Hepburn. “We want to improve collaboration between industry and the university… We need to bring talent and keep it here.”

Government Newfoundland and Labrador

Andrew Parsons, provincial minister, Industry, Energy and Technology, says the Newfoundland and Labrador government is on track for net zero emissions and he would love to work with industry and Memorial to increase jobs in the clean energy sector.

“In order to have joint wins, it is important for the government to understand goals and issues of both academia and industry, so government can help take it to the next step,” he said, explaining that in order to do that, government has to be aware of what’s going on. “Communication is key… The potential return on investment is tremendous. It’s an opportunity for us to turn around the deficit.”

The day was such a success that a second Industry Engagement Day is being held on July 5th, 2023.

“We hope for this event to become a tradition,” says Dr. Dobre. “By working closely with industry, we hope to transform Newfoundland and Labrador into an innovation hub.”

Dr. Qui agrees the event was a resounding success, with numerous enhanced and new partnerships and collaborations as a result. “We want to expand on existing relationships and develop new national and international partnerships.”

It’s easy to work alone. It’s better to work together.

BY DR. BRIAN VEITCH AND DR. RANDY BILLARD

António and Brian make a mistake

We made a mistake. So we had to start our experiment again. We were evaluating the capabilities of lifeboats to launch safely in heavy seas. We were using model scale lifeboats in the large test tank at the National Research Council in St. John’s. António Simões Ré –the lead researcher – had setup a small video camera inside the model lifeboat so we could “see” on a TV monitor what the lifeboat coxswain would see when driving the boat. The model lifeboat was operated by remote control by a technician who was watching the coxswain’s view on the TV monitor. After a couple of days of test launches in a wide range of wave conditions, we noticed a couple of things. First, the technician – our remote control operator – got a little seasick during some tests. This was a consequence of looking out the window of the lifeboat while it was being tossed around in big waves, even though the “window” was a TV monitor, comfortably situated in a control room. Second, he got noticeably better at operating the lifeboat. This wasn’t a factor we had accounted for when we designed the experiment, so we had to adjust our plan and start the experimental campaign again.

Trying new things is what research is about. Surprises - sometimes mistakes – are part of the discovery process. The fact that the technician’s boat handling skills improved within the first couple of days of test launches prompted us to wonder if there might be a training opportunity here. Our goal after all was to

improve the safety of people who work at sea. Our initial focus was on developing better evacuation technology as a way to do so. Arming personnel with special skills for critical situations looked like another opportunity to advance toward the goal.

Anthony makes three and Randy makes a simulator

Together with Anthony Patterson, who was at the Marine Institute’s Center for Marine Simulation, we successfully pitched a proposal to build a prototype lifeboat simulator that could be used to safely train personnel to execute evacuation operations – even in extreme weather conditions, which would otherwise be impossible to train for. We recruited a graduate student, Randy Billard, to run the project. By the time Randy graduated, he had built the first lifeboat simulator in the world and founded a company to bring the technology to market. Thus was created Virtual Marine (VM), from the cooperation of three people with a shared interest, combined with the strengths and capabilities of their three respective organizations, and catalyzed by a graduate student doing what graduate students do: something new.

Shared strategic intent is important. And everyone needs a win.

In the 20 years since, we have cooperated uninterrupted on over two dozen projects that have secured significant funding to support research and development aimed at improving safety of life at sea. This is our shared strategic intent. Our research enterprise has involved a cast of characters over the years, drawn from many cooperating organizations in the public and private sectors. For example, we’re currently working together on several projects:

• NSERC Alliance grant (Memorial University, Cenovus Energy, Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador(ERINL), Department of Industry, Energy and Technology- Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, American Bureau of Shipping, Virtual Marine, National Research Council Ocean, Coastal and River Engineering Research Centre (NRC-OCRE), Chalmers University, Aalto University)

• NRC AI4Logistics grant (Memorial University, National Research Council Digital Technologies

Research Centre (NRC-DT), Virtual Marine, NRCOCRE)

• Canada’s Ocean Supercluster Digital Ocean Canada (Virtual Marine, NRC-OCRE, ERINL, GRi Simulations, Memorial University)

Managing multi-partner projects like these requires a commitment of continual effort. Without the commitment, cooperation can’t endure. To animate such effort over the long term, a shared strategic intent is important. And everyone needs to win, so it’s important for partners to understand what constitutes success for themselves, for others, and for the collective group.

Cooperative R&D projects provide great opportunities for training graduates students in supportive, diverse settings. Our projects have supported about 50 graduate students over the years, as well as undergraduate internships. They also provide rich settings for strong research outcomes, such as students’ theses and publications (over 120), and occasionally, inventions. Many of the students who work in cooperative R&D projects become employees in technology companies like Virtual Marine.

As the company has grown, the relationship between Virtual Marine and the university has evolved. The relationship started with Virtual Marine licensing prototype technologies, advancing to commercial prototypes, and testing with early technology adopters. Virtual Marine then worked with Memorial University on human factors studies to demonstrate these new inventions provided as good, or better, training than traditional training. Along the way, the company catalyzed changes to international regulations, resulting in simulation becoming a preferred way to train. Following 18 years of continued innovation, technology and training sales, and a growing global client base, Virtual Marine is now channeling industry-led research to Memorial University through the needs identified by their client base.

Upwards

Virtual Marine has grown their product line to include simulations of several lifeboat types (Free Fall, Davit Launch), fast response boats, and full ship bridges. The company provides technology and training services to various markets including oil and gas, defense, Coast Guard, ferries, and cruise ships. Virtual Marine has delivered over 120 simulators to a global market and is currently operating four training facilities with partners in Canada, Qatar, Scotland, and the United States. As a technology and training company, Virtual Marine is recognized as a leader in developing simulation-based training for small boats and vessels operating in ice. This leadership position is supported by the strong research portfolio of Memorial University and NRC-OCRE.

Randy Billard is the President and CEO of Virtual Marine. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s Degree and Ph.D in Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

The research relationship between Memorial University and Virtual Marine will continue to strengthen with research programs that target the use of simulation to develop digital twin, remote sensing, and artificially intelligent software technologies for the marine industry. A key component of the collaboration is the contribution of simulators and technical expertise to support students and researchers. Virtual Marine is expanding simulation facilities at Memorial University, NRC-OCRE and the newly announced Innovation Center in St. John’s, NL to support the local research ecosystem.

This story illustrates how strong and committed cooperation can move research and innovation from concept, to prototype, to global commercialization, to an ecosystem capable of supporting a community of industry and academic partners.

Brian Veitch is a Professor in the Ocean and Naval Architectural Engineering department in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. He has been the Cenovus Energy Research Chair since 2013.

Awards and Accomplishments

Faculty

Baiyu (Helen)

Zhang Reappointed, Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Coastal Environmental Engineering Elected, Royal Society of Canada’s Class of 2022 Appointed, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada

Bing Chen Appointed, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering

Brian Veitch Appointed, Chalmers Jubilee Professorship, Chalmers University of Technology

Doug Smith Awarded, Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries Journal’s best paper.

Kelly Hawboldt Appointed, University Research Professor Appointed, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering

Lorenzo Moro Awarded, Canada-Italy Innovation Award 2022

Octavia Dobre Appointed, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Ubiquitous Connectivity Awarded, IEEE Communications Society Joseph LoCicero Award

Appointed, Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association Awarded, IEEE Communications Society’s Technical Recognition Award Recognition, Exemplary Editor, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials

Stephen Butt Awarded, 2022 Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering Award in Design and Industrial Practice

Wei Qiu Appointed, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering

Xili Duan Appointed, Fellow of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering

Students

Rajith Dayarathne Editor’s Choice Award, Canadian Geotechnical Journal

Ahmed Al-Habob Graduate Students’ Union Award in Research Excellence

Hossain Janbazi Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies, Memorial University

Sahar Goudarzi Best Student Paper, Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering International Congress

Zhiding Yang Best Student Poster, 2022 Oceans’ Conference

Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science

Research Service

Civil Engineering

Ashutosh Dhar Member, Editorial Board: Transportation Infrastructure Geotechnology

Baiyu (Helen)

Zhang Section Chair, NSERC Discovery grants evaluation group: Civil, Industrial, and Systems Engineering

Atlantic Region Director, Canadian Association on Water Quality

Chair, Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, NL Section

Associate Editor, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering

Bing Chen Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Systems Research

Associate Editor, Canadian Water Resources Journal

Associate Editor, Journal of Environmental Informatics Letters

Bipul Hawlader Associate Editor, Canadian Geotechnical Journal

Hodjat Shiri Associate Editor, American Society of Civil Engineer’s Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ashraf Khan Guest Editor, Energies Journal

Andrew Vardy Associate Editor, IEEE International Conference on Robots and Systems Organizer, AutonoMUN 2022

Cecilia

Moloney Vice Chair, Canada Foundation for Innovation’s Board of Directors Chair, Canada Foundation for Innovation’s Governance and Nominating Committee

Cheng Li Section Chair, NSERC Discovery grants evaluation group: Computer Science

Associate Editor, IEEE Transactions on Communications

Associate Editor, IEEE Internet-of-Things Journal

Associate Editor, IEEE Network Magazine

Associate Editor, IEEE System Journal

Eric Gill Member, NSERC Discovery grants evaluation group: Electrical and Computer Engineering

Jonathan Anderson Member, NSERC PromoScience Selection Committee

Octavia Dobre Chair, NSERC Discovery grants evaluation group: Electrical and Computer Engineering

Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society

Director of Journals, IEEE Communications Society

Member, Advisory Board: IEEE Communications Letters

Associate Editor, IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials

Associate Editor, IEEE Systems

Associate Editor, IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine

Mohsin Jamil Associate Editor, IEEE Access

Associate Editor, Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Associate Editor, Energies Journal

Reza Shahidi Guest Editor, Special Issue on Shore-based and Marine Radars for Ocean Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing Journal

Sarah Power Member, NSERC Scholarships and Fellowships Selection Committee: Chemical, Biomedical, and Materials Science Engineering

Associate Editor, Biomedical Engineering Online

Weimin Huang Area Editor, IEEE Canadian Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering Member, Editorial Board, Remote Sensing Journal

Associate Editor, IEEE Access

Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering

Ahmed Elruby Guest Editor, Special Issue on Recent Developments in Sensor Network-Based Data-Driven Systems, Sensors Journal

Guest Editor, Special Issue Title: Smart Structural and Material Solutions for Buildings Using Composite Materials, Buildings Journal

James Yang Member, NSERC Discovery grants evaluation group: Mechanical Engineering

Mohammad

Al-Janideh Technical Editor, IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics

Ting Zou Review Editor, Ocean Observation: Frontiers in Marine Science

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 Member, Editorial Board: Ships and Offshore Journal

David

Molyneux Co-Editor, Journal of Ocean Technology

Wei Qiu Member, NSERC Research Tools and Instrumentation Selection Committee: Mechanical Engineering

Process Engineering

Kelly Hawboldt Member, Banting Scholarship Review Committee Member, Ocean Frontier Institute Scientific Advisory Board

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

Yahui Zhang Guest Editor, Special issue on Opportunities and Challenges in Mining and Mineral Processes, Processes Journal

Yan Zhang Member, NSERC Research Tools and Instrumentation Selection Committee: Materials and Chemical Engineering

277 active grants

new applications

185 collaborative research funds-valued over $10M (67.7%)

11 researchers recognized on the world’s top 2% scientist 2022 list

404 publications › 120 open access

% of publications in top 10% of journals

% of publications in top 1% of journals

Energy

A Novel Fluidized Bed Suitable for the Hydrolysis Step in CuCl Hydrogen Production Cycle.

Finney, L.; Gabriel, K.; Pope, K. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 2022, 47 (71), 30378–30390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.07.028

A Novel Model Predictive Controller for Distributed Generation in Isolated Microgrids—Part I: Development and Parameterization of the Data-Driven Predictive Model.

Shabbir, M. N. S. K.; Liang, X.; Li, W.; Imtiaz, S.; Quaicoe, J. E. IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications 2022, 58 (5), 5844–5859. https://doi.org/10.1109/tia.2022.3181246

An Experimentally-Verified Approach for Enhancing Fluid Drag Force Simulation in Vertical Oilwell Drill Strings.

Galagedarage Don, M.; Rideout, G. Mathematical and Computer Modelling of Dynamical Systems 2022, 28 (1), 197–228.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13873954.2022.2143531

Alternation of Asphaltene Binding Arrangement in the Presence of Chemical Inhibitors: Molecular Dynamics Simulation Strategy.

Ghamartale, A.; Rezaei, N.; Zendehboudi, S. Fuel 2023, 336, 127001.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2022.127001

Formic Acid Dehydrogenation Using Noble-Metal Nanoheterogeneous Catalysts: Towards Sustainable Hydrogen-Based Energy.

Al-Nayili, A.; Majdi, H. Sh.; Albayati, T. M.; Saady, N. M. C. Catalysts 2022, 12 (3), 324.

https://doi.org/10.3390/catal12030324

Improved High Step-up Cockcroft-Walton Magnetic Coupling Inverter.

Esmaeili, S.; Khan, A. A.; Jamil, M.; Khan, U. A.; Ahmed, H. F.; Ahmed, S.

IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs 2022, 1–1. https://doi.org/10.1109/tcsii.2022.3220432

Low-Cost, Open-Source, Emoncms-Based SCADA System for a Large Grid-Connected PV System.

Ahsan, L.; Baig, M. J. A.; Iqbal, M. T. Sensors 2022, 22 (18), 6733.

https://doi.org/10.3390/s22186733

Nondifferential AC Choppers Based Identical Bipolar Buck–Boost AC–AC Converter without Commutation Issue.

Ahmed, H. F.; Chung, C. H.; Khan, A. A.; Aleem, Z.; Akbar, F.; Alzaabi, O.

IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics 2023, 38 (4), 4988–4999. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPEL.2022.3231367

Potential Application of Canola Hull Fuel Pellets for the Production of Synthesis Gas and Hydrogen. Azargohar, R.; Nanda, S.; Cheng, H.; Dalai, A. K. Energies 2022, 15 (22), 8613. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15228613

Probability Density Analysis of Nonlinear Stochastic Dynamics of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Blades. Chen, J.; Yang, J.; Shen, K.; Zheng, Z.; Chang, Z. Ocean Engineering 2022, 261, 111806. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.111806

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

Ocean Technology

A Method for Evaluating Operational Implications of Regulatory Constraints on Arctic Shipping. Browne, T.; Tran, T. T.; Veitch, B.; Smith, D.; Khan, F.; Taylor, R. Marine Policy 2022, 135, 104839. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2021.104839

Adaptive Control for Follower Gliders Mapping Underwater Oil Patches. Wang, Y.; Bose, N.; Thanyamanta, W.; Bulger, C.; ShaikhUpadhye, S.

Journal of Hazardous Materials 2022, 436, 129039. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129039

Schematic

of sustainable hydrogen-based energy through formic acid dehydrogenation

An Energy-Efficient Dynamic Positioning Controller for High Sea Conditions.

Alagili, O.; Khan, M. A. I.; Ahmed, S.; Imtiaz, S.; Zaman, H.; Islam, M. Applied Ocean Research 2022, 129, 103331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apor.2022.103331

Benchmark Study of Global Linear Wave Loads on a Container Ship with Forward Speed.

Parunov, J.; Guedes Soares, C.; Hirdaris, S.; Iijima, K.; Wang, X.; Brizzolara, S.; Qiu, W.; Mikulić, A.; Wang, S.; Abdelwahab, H. S. Marine Structures 2022, 84, 103162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marstruc.2022.103162

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 https://doi.org/10.1049/rsn2.12361

Full-Scale Ship-Structure Ice Impact Laboratory Experiments: Experimental Apparatus and Initial Results.

Lande Andrade, S.; Elruby, A. Y.; Hipditch, E.; Daley, C. G.; Quinton, B. W. T. Ships and Offshore Structures 2022, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17445302.2022.2032993

Ice Accretion for Ships and Offshore Structures. Part 1 - State of the Art Review. Mintu, S.; Molyneux, D. Ocean Engineering 2022, 258, 111501. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.111501

Freezing Delay of Water Droplets on Metallic Hydrophobic Surfaces in a Cold Environment.

Shi, K.; Duan, X.

Applied Thermal Engineering 2022, 216, 119131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2022.119131.

Spatial–Temporal Convolutional Gated Recurrent Unit Network for Significant Wave Height Estimation from Shipborne Marine Radar Data. Chen, X.; Huang, W. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 2022, 60, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2021.3074075

Structure-Borne Noise of Marine Diesel Engines: Dynamic Characterization of Resilient Mounts. Fragasso, J.; Moro, L. Ocean Engineering 2022, 261, 112116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2022.112116

Information and Communication Technology

Asymptotic Gradient Clock Synchronization in Wireless Sensor Networks for UWB Localization. Senevirathna, N. M.; De Silva, O.; Mann, G. K. I.; Gosine, R. G. IEEE Sensors Journal 2022, 22 (24), 24578–24592. https://doi.org/10.1109/jsen.2022.3213696.

Civil Aircraft Assisted Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks: An Innovative NTN of 5G and Beyond. Li, S.; Chen, Q.; Meng, W.; Li, C. IEEE Wireless Communications 2022, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1109/mwc.204.2100207

Large Pendulum schematic with some structure removed to show the carriages.

Schematic of Spray generation process.

Digest of Blockchain Technologies to Design System for Big Image Data Provenance and Security.

Zakharov, I.; Anderson, J.; Parsons, G.; Henschel, M. D.; Ewenson, B.; Papanagiotou, C. Communications in Computer and Information Science 2022, 33–47.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98883-8_3

Industry 4.0 Based Process Data Analytics Platform. Wanasinghe, T. R.; Galagedarage Don, M.; Arunthavanathan, R.; Gosine, R. G. Methods in Chemical Process Safety 2022, 101–137.

https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.mcps.2022.04.008

Intelligence-Based Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Communications for Digital Twin-Enabled Metaverse.

Van Huynh, D.; Khosravirad, S. R.; Masaracchia, A.; Dobre, O. A.; Duong, T. Q. Edge IEEE Wireless Communications Letters 2022, 11 (8), 1733–1737.

https://doi.org/10.1109/LWC.2022.3179207

Ultra-Low Power SAR ADC Using Statistical Characteristics of Low-Activity Signals.

Nasiri, H.; Li, C.; Zhang, L. IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems 2022, 30 (9), 1319–1331. https://doi.org/10.1109/tvlsi.2022.3187659

Environment and Sustainable Infrastructure

A Nonlocal Eulerian-Based Finite-Element Approach for Strain-Softening Materials.

Chen, J.; Hawlader, B.; Roy, K.; Pike, K. Computers and Geotechnic s 2023, 154, 105114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2022.105114

An Alternative Vessel Excitation Algorithm to Incorporate the Trench Effect into the Fatigue Analysis of Steel Catenary Risers in the Touchdown Zone. Rokni, H. J.; Shiri, H. Applied Ocean Research 2022, 126, 103292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apor.2022.103292

Burst Pressure Assessment of Pipe Bend/Elbow for Transmission Pipelines.

Mondal, B. C.; Dhar, A. S.; Hafiz, H. I. Thin-Walled Structures 2022, 174, 109148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tws.2022.109148

Development of Advanced Oil/Water Separation Technologies to Enhance the Effectiveness of Mechanical Oil Recovery Operations at Sea: Potential and Challenges.

Liu, B.; Chen, B.; Ling, J.; Matchinski, E. J.; Dong, G.; Ye, X.; Wu, F.; Shen, W.; Liu, L.; Lee, K.; Isaacman, L.; Potter, S.; Hynes, B.; Zhang, B.

Journal of Hazardous Materials 2022, 437, 129340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.129340.

Piecemeal Clustering: A Self-Driven Data Clustering Algorithm.

Hasan, Md. M. U.; Shahidi, R.; Peters, D. K.; James, L.; Gosine, R. IEEE Access 2022, 10, 129985–130000.

https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3228238

Review of Navigation Methods for UAV-Based Parcel Delivery.

Dissanayaka, D.; Wanasinghe, T. R.; Silva, O. D.; Jayasiri, A.; Mann, G. K. I.

IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering 2023, 1–15.

https://doi.org/10.1109/tase.2022.3232025

Effect of Tension-Stiffening on Finite Element Analysis of Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer-Reinforced Concrete Members.

Alam, M. S.; Hussein, A. International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology 2022, 16 (2), 194. https://doi.org/10.1504/ijcaet.2022.120814

Formulation and Procedure for in Situ Stress BackAnalysis from Borehole Strain Changes Measured during Nearby Underground Excavation.

Lin, C.; Zou, D. H. S.

Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 2023 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2022.12.010

Edge-based 6G URLLC-enabled Metaverse System

Medium-Scale Laboratory Investigation of the Effect of Confinement on Ice Rubble Strength and Failure Behavior.

Shayanfar, H.; Bailey, E.; Taylor, R. Cold Regions Science and Technology 2022, 202, 103629. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2022.103629

Review of Hollow Fiber (HF) Membrane Filtration Technology for the Treatment of Oily Wastewater: Applications and Challenges.

Keyvan Hosseini, M.; Liu, L.; Keyvan Hosseini, P.; Bhattacharyya, A.; Lee, K.; Miao, J.; Chen, B. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 2022, 10 (9), 1313. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse10091313

Use of Rubberized Engineered Cementitious Composite in Strengthening Flexural Concrete Beams.

AbdelAleem, B. H.; Hassan, A. A. A. Engineering Structures 2022, 262, 114304. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2022.114304

Other/Emerging Areas of Importance

A Reinforcement Learning Development of the FRAM for Functional Reward-Based Assessments of Complex Systems Performance.

Salehi, V.; Tran, T. T.; Veitch, B.; Smith, D. International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 2022, 88, 103271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ergon.2022.103271

A Review of Bat-Inspired Shape Morphing Robotic Design.

Sui, T.; Zou, T. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics 2022, 14 (5). https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4053686

Assessing Road to Mental Readiness (R2MR) Training among Correctional Workers in Canada.

Johnston, M. S.; Ricciardelli, R.; Ghodrati, M.; Czarnuch, S. Health & Justice 2023, 11 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40352-023-00206-z

Co-Doped Carbon Quantum Dots/TiO2 Composite for Visible-Light-Driven Photocatalytic Reduction of Cr (VI).

Chang, L.; Ahmad, N.; Zeng, G.; Ray, A.; Zhang, Y. N, S Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 2022, 10 (6), 108742.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2022.108742

Extraction of Astaxanthin from Atlantic Shrimp By-Products Using Fish Oil: Process Optimization and Operational Parameter Effects.

Ahmadkelayeh, S.; Cheema, S. K.; Hawboldt, K. Journal of Cleaner Production 2022, 371, 133609. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133609

Flow Visualization: State-of-The-Art Development of Micro-Particle Image Velocimetry.

Etminan, A.; Muzychka, Y. S.; Pope, K.; Nyantekyi-Kwakye, B. Measurement Science and Technology 2022, 33 (9), 092002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6501/ac75b0

Mechanism Study of Cd(II) Ion Adsorption onto Resins with Sulfonic/Phosphonic Groups Using Electronic Structure Methods.

Zhang, Y.; Elfeghe, S.; Tang, Z. Journal of Molecular Liquids 2022, 358, 119199.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2022.119199

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of the Hydrogen Embrittlement Base Case: Atomic Hydrogen in a Defect Free Single Crystal. Morrissey, L. S.; Nakhla, S. Molecular Simulation 2022, 48 (13), 1214–1222. https://doi.org/10.1080/08927022.2022.2077936

Multi-Objective Optimization of a Reluctance Actuator for Precision Motion Applications. Al Saaideh, M.; Alatawneh, N.; Al Janaideh, M. Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 2022, 546, 168652.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2021.168652

A bat robot with active morphing wings

Estimating of Non-Darcy Flow Coefficient in Artificial Porous Media.

Elsanoose, A.; Abobaker, E.; Khan, F.; Rahman, M. A.; Aborig, A.; Butt, S. D. Energies 2022, 15 (3), 1197.

https://doi.org/10.3390/en15031197

Review of Interpretable Machine Learning for Process Industries.

Carter, A.; Imtiaz, S.; Naterer, G. F. Process Safety and Environmental Protection 2022

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2022.12.018

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

Scope and Scale of Technology Challenge and MNE Subsidiary Knowledge Sourcing in Host Countries. Murphree, M.; Petersen, B.; Warrian, P.; Gosine, R. Technovation 2022, 116, 102485.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2022.102485

Simultaneous Classification of Both Mental Workload and Stress Level Suitable for an Online Passive Brain–Computer Interface Bagheri, M.; Power, S. D. Sensors 2022, 22 (2), 535. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22020535

The Swarm within the Labyrinth: Planar Construction by a Robot Swarm. Vardy, A. Artificial Life and Robotics 2023

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10015-022-00849-5

Schematic diagram of the E-core reluctance actuator

Faculty of Engineering & Applied Science

Partners

We would like to extend our gratitude to our Federal and Provincial Government, 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

Baffin Fisheries

BMT Fleet Technology

Bombardier Inc.

Cahill Group

Canada First Research Excellence Fund

Canada Foundation for Innovation

Canada Research Chairs

Canadian Coast Guard

Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Canadian Microelectronics

Canadian Space Agency

CanaGas Inc.

C-CORE

Cenovus Energy

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

Exxon Mobil Canada Ltd.

ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company

Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Fleetway Inc.

FortisBC Energy Inc.

Genome Alberta

Genome Canada

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

Graphite Innovation & Technologies Inc.

Hibernia Management & Development Company Ltd.

Huawei Technologies Canada Co., Ltd.

Hurd Solutions Inc.

IBM

Imperial Oil Ltd.

INTECSEA Canada

Inuit Circumpolar Council

Kværner

Lloyd’s Register Educational Trust

M. A. Procense

Maersk

Manitoba Hydro

Marine Institute

Memorial Centre For Entrepreneurship

Mitacs

Nalcor Energy

National Research Council – Institute for Aerospace Research

The ERO would like to thank Susan Flanagan of 48 Degrees Inc. and Vanessa Iddon of Perfect Day for their dedicated support in the development of this report.

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.

Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science

Memorial University of Newfoundland

St. John's, NL

A1B 3XS

Faculty

of Engineering and Applied Science researchers play leadership roles in the Qanittaq Clean Arctic Shipping Initiative to create transformational change and enhance Canada’s position as a world-leader in Arctic shipping.