News Archive

MTQ Colloquium

On May 8, 2007, I presented some of our research group's recent work at the 14e Colloque sur la progression de la recherche québécoise sur les ouvrages d'art (14th Colloquium on the Advancement of Bridge Research in Quebec), organized by the Ministère des transports du Québec. The title of the presentation was L'emploi efficace du béton et de l'acier de précontrainte dans les ponts de courte portée (Efficient use of concrete and prestressing steel in short-span bridges).

New members of research staff

We are very pleased to welcome three new graduate students and eleven undergraduate summer research assistants to the research group. Read more...

NSERC Research Tools and Instruments grant

Colleague Frank Vecchio and I were awarded $134,000 from the NSERC RTI program to purchase a high-performance concrete mixer. This equipment will significantly enhance our ability to produce high-performance concrete with high ratios of steel fibres.

Praxis I Design Exhibition

An exhibition of projects prepared by the ten finalists in the Praxis I Design Competition was mounted in the lobby of the Bahen Centre. The exhibition ran through to the beginning of May, 2007.

MASc degrees completed

Talayeh Noshiravani and Carlene Ramsay successfully completed the requirements for their MASc degrees. We wish both of them the best in their future endeavours.

Portland Cement Association's Bridge Professors Seminar

Each year, the Portland Cement Association puts on a week-long seminar for university professors, to give them up-to-date knowledge of design practice. The bridge portion of the course was held on August 3 and 4, 2006. I was asked by the Post-Tensioning Institute (which collaborates with the Portland Cement Association on this course) to teach the portions of this course related to post-tensioning and post-tensioned bridges.

Summer Outing

On July 22, 2006, my research group traveled to Niagara Falls to visit the site of the Niagara Tunnel Project. This tunnel will bring additional water to the Sir Adam Beck generating station. We are grateful to Mary Jane Ferraro 0T4 Engineering Science (Infrastructure Option) who works on this project for organizing the visit.

Canadian Design Engineering Network Conference

I am chairman of the organizing committee of this conference, which will be held in Toronto on July 24 to 26, 2006.

Seminar

Mr. Robert Ullner, doctoral candidate at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH) will present a seminar on Bond of Prestressing Tendons on Monday, May 15 at 10:00 AM in Room 117 of the Galbraith Building (35 St. George Street). Read the abstract...

Exhibition of student design projects

Student projects from ESC 101F Praxis I and CIV 1164S Bridge Engineering are currently on display in the lobby of the Galbraith Building, 35 St. George Street. Thanks to Jason Salonga for leading the effort to exhibit these works.

Celebration of award of the NSERC Design Chair

We were honoured to welcome Dr. Suzanne Fortier, President of NSERC, for a celebration of the award of the NSERC Chair in Design Engineering. Read more...

Seminar and lecture at Johns Hopkins University

I was invited to present a seminar and an undergraduate lecture by the Department of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

My undergraduate lecture was in the course Perspectives on the Evolution of Structures, taught by Professor Sanjay Arwade, who describes the course as "a study of the history of structural design to demonstrate to students the discipline of structural art and to give them the tools necessary to evaluate structures as works of structural art." This innovative course is open to both engineering and non-engineering students. I lectured on Materials and Form in Bridge Design.

I also presented a graduate seminar entitled Concrete Bridges for the 21st Century, in which I described new bridge concepts that make efficient use of high-strength concrete.

Lecture at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg

I was invited to present a public lecture at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg as part of a series on The Origin of Form (Die Entstehung von Form). This lecture series was organized by Professor Viktor Sigrist and his colleagues at the TUHH, as part of their interdisciplinary graduate program Kunst und Technik (Art and Technology).

The title of my lecture was The Role of New Materials in the Development of Form in Bridge Design.

The Art of Structural Design: A Swiss Legacy

An exhibition on the life and work of four eminent Swiss engineers, who earned recognition for the technical excellence and the cultural significance of the structures they designed, opened at the U of T Art Centre. Read more...

CIV 513S Collaborative Design Studio

CIV 513S Collaborative Design Studio brings together civil engineering and architecture students on a building design project. This year, we added a small design-build project to give the students an immediate exposure to the collaborative process. Students were required to design and construct towers of plywood to a strict specification. On February 7, 2005, the towers were load-tested to failure in the U of T Department of Civil Engineering's Structures Lab. Photos of the towers are available for viewing.

Congratulations to Andrew Hart and Jason Salonga, the overall winners!

CIV 356F Infrastructure Design Project

This year's project for CIV 356F will be the Peace Bridge, which crosses the Niagara River between Fort Erie and Buffalo. The class and I made a site visit on September 24, 2004. We are grateful to Mr. Bruce Campbell of the Peace Bridge Expansion Project for sharing his insights and understanding of this complex project with us.

PCI Big Beam Competition Results

Our team placed second in Zone 7 (Canada), and won a cash prize of US$750.00! Congratulations to Jeff Erochko, Luka Matutinovic, and Graham Potter on a job well done.

Student Site Visits

My summer undergraduate students and I made several site visits this month.

The first visit was to a highway widening project on the Queen Elizabeth Way near St. Catharines. Part of the project involves replacing an existing double-track railway bridge with a longer-spanning structure to accommodate the wider highway below. The picture shows one of these structures, a steel through-plate girder span. In the picture, from left to right, are Ryan Chan 0T5, Letitia Yeung 0T5, Grace Yeung 0T5, and Jenny Lam 0T6.

We are very grateful to the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario, and to Mr. Ron Mather of Henderson Paddon and Associates for making this visit possible, and to Mr. Dave Adamo of Henderson Paddon and Associates for being our guide on site.

Our second visit was to Pre-Con Inc. in Woodstock. Pre-Con is a concrete precaster. Their Woodstock operation specializes in the manufacture of precast, pretensioned concrete components, including double-T girders for buildings and I-girders for bridges. In the picture, from left to right, are Raymond Tam 0T6, Letitia Yeung 0T5, Grace Yeung 0T5, Jenny Lam 0T6, and Ryan Chan 0T5.

We would like to thank Mr. Dan Werby of Pre-Con for leading us on a very detailed and informative tour of this facility. We are also grateful to Mr. John Fowler of the Canadian Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute for his assistance in organizing this visit.

Our third visit was to Walters Inc., a steel fabricator in Hamilton. We toured their shop and saw the fabrication of steel for the new Pharmacy Building at the U of T, a challenging project that includes a curved three-dimensional "pod" that will be suspended in an open area between the first and sixth floors. In the picture, from left to right, are Grace Lau 0T5, Jenny Lam 0T6, Ryan Chan 0T5, Raymond Tam 0T6, Anson Yuen 0T6, Chris Van Houten of Walters Inc., and Letitia Yeung 0T5.

We thank Mr. Chris Van Houten and Mr. Tom Verhey of Walters Inc. for welcoming us to their shop and for taking the time to give us an excellent overview of their operation. We also are grateful to Ms. Suja John of the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction for helping us to organize the visit.

PCI Big Beam Competition

I served as faculty advisor for the U of T entry in the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute's Big Beam Competition.

The team was composed of Graham Potter, Luka Matutinovic, and Jeff Erochko (shown from left to right in the photo), all 0T6 Engineering Science students in the Infrastructure Option. They designed, built, and load tested to failure a post-tensioned high-performance concrete beam spanning 4.2 m, in accordance with the competition regulations. The beam exhibited impressive ductility, thanks to excellent confinement of the flexural compression zone.

We are very grateful to for the generous support of Coreslab Structures Ltd. (CPCI Producer Member) and Dywidag Systems Inc.