Javad Dargahi, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, has successfully obtained an NSERC CRD grant to work with Dreco Energy on new technology that will improve the design process for the huge drills that are used in the energy industry. Directional drilling is increasing in this sector, but information about stress and load factors are not currently properly incorporated into the design process, and so Dargahi and his colleagues will create a simulation software that will help.
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Faculty Accolades - January
Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport has an environmental badge of honour, thanks in part to the ingenuity of engineering grad Thanos Tzempelikos. The airport is Canada’s first to hold Airports Council International’s Airport Carbon Accreditation for sharply reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Mentored by Andreas Athienitis, a professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tzempelikos, who obtained his PhD from Concordia in 2005, has helped introduce automated window shades and lighting controls throughout the airport, a project ADM has called “ingenious”. Read more.
Ted Stathopoulos, a professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, has received an honorary degree from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, which he will be awarded on April 30, 2015. Stathopoulos is being recognized as a “top researcher in the field of wind engineering and building aerodynamics.” Stathopoulos’ influential research underpins the wind load provisions of the National Building Code of Canada, and his research and teaching lab in the basement of the EV Building, unique in the province of Quebec, is frequently used for testing and simulation purposes by companies looking to build in Montreal and elsewhere.
It’s not every day that an academic turns filmmaker, but that’s the story of Govind Gopakumar, whose movie, The Social Life of a Bus, premiered January 17 at the national conference of Engineers Without Borders, held in Montreal. With his film, Gopakumar, an associate professor in the Centre for Engineering in Society, examined the issues of safety, equity, and accessibility of public transport in the city of Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) in India, home to a population of 10 million. The film, funded with the support of Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, will be screened to the general public later in 2015 at Concordia.
At the recent Quebec Engineering Games, held January 3-7 and hosted by Université de Sherbrooke, Concordia’s student team notched up one of its strongest performances in the competition’s history. Concordia finished third overall, and first in several categories. On the podium with Concordia were Quebec engineering heavyweights, Université Laval and Polytechnique Montréal. The president of the 40-member delegation that scored such historically excellent results, James Fradette, says, “It was fantastic. I couldn’t have asked for more from the delegation.” Find out more.