The cost of labour makes up almost a third of the operating costs for greenhouse, nursery and floriculture operations. Many growers are seeking ways of automating labour intensive processes to reduce their exposure to increasing minimum wages and shortages of available labour. Planting flower bulbs is an example of one such process. The main barriers […]

Continuous fibre (CF) aerospace preforms exhibiting excellent mechanical performance possess low formability characteristics and are confined to simple shell-like geometries with minimal curvatures. On the other hand, short fibre preforms such as randomly oriented strands (ROS) offer high formability but exhibit low mechanical performance. The manufacturing of composites involves time and huge costs. The overall […]

Modern air seeders in their simplest form involve an air supply system that receives granular product (seed and fertilizer) from a large holding tank, propels the product through several distribution lines, and delivers the product to the soil. Currently the conveying air runs faster than is usually required to reduce the risk of plugging. However, […]

Ciena Corporation is a global supplier of telecommunications networking equipment. It develops this equipment in a high product mix, low volume environment. Due to this environment and the short cycle times of its products, the company has product categories, which are highly dynamic both in volume and number of customers. Ciena wishes to be more […]

The new generation of complex composites structures that will be developed by Hutchinson and its partners will integrate several functions, as esthetic interior panel, acoustic, thermal and vibration isolation, in addition to mechanical and robustness contribution brought by the integrated structure. These new technologies will allow to reduce the amount of parts, and also to […]

There have been many new operational drivers that require changes to the traditional training processes in small and medium companies, i.e. the advancement of technology, the mass retirement of the baby boomer generation, and the ever more dynamically-changing values of the web-generation workforce. Dealing with bridging the skill gaps may deem to uproot the company […]

The objective of the proposed research is to investigate novel solid-state materials that have potential for hydrogen storage applications in fuel cell electric vehicles. Of interest are materials that can store hydrogen at ambient conditions and low pressures, have high gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen capacities, and can be safely packed into a hydrogen storage tank […]

Fine particulate air pollution is recognized as causing health problems globally, but health researchers are just starting to understand where people receive their exposure, which will influence policies and regulations. There is a need for size-resolved particle measurements using a device that can be carried easily by a person. Nanozen has built such a device, […]

Cold Spray is a coating additive manufacturing process relying on the particle kinetic, with particles plastically deforming upon impact with the substrate and adhering to it. While the production of thin aluminum/aluminum alloys coatings (below 1mm) by Cold Spray is fairly common, the production of thick coatings (> 1mm) and large net-shape parts has been […]

In this project, we will develop solid-state hydrogen storage materials for the potential applications of fuel cell electric vehicles. Based on the most cutting-edge achievements in related fields, two categories of two-dimensional layered nanomaterials are proposed. Their hydrogen storage capabilities will be elaborated by in-depth characterization of material structure and hydrogen storage properties. Moreover, we […]

Non-metallic technologies, including composite materials, have the potential to improve aircraft engines performances and fuel efficiency, and therefore gained a lot of popularity in the aerospace sector in the past decades. Therefore, the overall objective of this research project is to develop an understanding of all available non-metallic technologies, their maturity and value proposition when […]

The research project provides for the advancement of knowledge of and methodology for fretting phenomena modeling specific to nuclear fuel rod systems to preclude component failures. Grid-to-rod-fretting (GTRF) remains the most common cause of fuel rod failures and associated performance issues in pressurized water reactors (PWR). GTRF denotes the deterioration of the surface integrity of […]