An email about the MITACS Accelerate Internship Program was all it took to peak Dr. Christine Wu’s interest.

After receiving a tenure position with the mechanical and manufacturing engineering department at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Wu was determined to find industry partners to do research collaborations with. When she received the email from MITACS, she followed up to see if there were internship opportunities for her PhD student, May Yang.

Dr. Wu and Yang were matched with Motor Coach Industries Ltd. (MCI), a manufacturer of intercity coaches serving charter and tour operations. MCI was interested in developing an automated system that would test the durability performance of their coaches. MCI’s current system for vibration testing involved a large time commitment and produced results that had a considerable degree of uncertainties. Being able to develop an automated testing system would result in significant time and cost savings as well as more reliable conclusions.

During a 4-month internship, Yang was tasked with mathematically analyzing a vibration data set obtained from the heating and ventilation units of MCI’s motor coaches.  The goal was to identify the key components of the data which can be used to develop a lab-based automated testing system. Interestingly, the results indicated that MCI’s manual testing methods had room for modifications which would result in improvements in durability testing.

Seeing the potential for further research collaborations, MCI and Dr. Wu embarked on a much larger research project based on the findings of Yang’s internship. After some discussions, a cluster of 14 internships began to work on the development of a mathematical tool for accelerated durability tests of ground vehicles. The outcome of these internships will empower MCI to bring their products to market more quickly and economically than would be possible using standard life testing methods.

“When we started this collaboration, we learned about problems and now we’re really helping MCI solve them,” said Dr. Wu. “I’m really thrilled to see how my knowledge and research has been able to bridge the gap between academic theory and industry applications.”

The continued collaboration between MCI, Dr. Wu and the University of Manitoba has also resulted in developments in Dr. Wu’s research. She is now co-supervising students with professors from other departments that otherwise wouldn’t have seemed possible before. Her student group has grown from 4 students in 2007 to 11 in 2010, with more requesting her supervision than ever before.

“This collaboration has helped me create a really good environment to train HQPs,” commented Dr. Wu. “Now, industry can come and do presentations and students are able to visit their manufacturing line.”

With the support of MCI and the University of Manitoba, Dr. Wu is also in the process of being nominated for an NSERC Senior Research Chair position. Dr. Wu is hoping this will be the first step to creating a research hub for commercial ground transportation in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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