Civil Engineering

Environmental Engineering Laboratory

Environmental Engineering Laboratory (M412) is a 800-ft2 laboratory devoted to the analytical determination of physical, chemical and biological water quality. It also allows for bench-scale physical models on waste treatment systems to be studied.

Laboratory for Innovative Corrosion Detection Technique in Concrete Structures

(CFI funded, Project Leader: Dr. L. Amleh)

This Non Destructive Testing Laboratory is the basis of a full-fledged laboratory that deals principally with all aspects of the research program in deterioration, repairs and retrofitting of concrete structures. The main feature of this laboratory is to conduct research programs dealing with the significant corrosion problems in all kinds of concrete infrastructure, including corrosion of reinforcing and prestressing steel in structural concrete, alkali-aggregate reactivity, freezing and thawing cycles, quality of concrete in terms of its permeability (which is responsible for all deterioration problems), strength and other related issues, and some other
relevant phenomena. The systems of equipment are presented in the following manner:

Electrochemical Testing System: This system of equipments includes a covermeter, a half-cell potential and linear polarization test equipments.
Half Cell Potential Measurements: The standard test method for Half-Cell Potentials of Uncoated Reinforcing Steel in Concrete is described in the ASTM C876-91. The Half-Cell test assesses the probability of corrosion activity in the reinforcing steel.
"GECOR 6" Measures rate of corrosion of rebars: Utilizes the polarization resistance technique to establish the corrosion rate. This is a quantitative measurement of the amount of steel oxidizing at a time of measurement.
Testing Concrete Quality and Durability: Beside the conventional concrete strength tests the concrete quality and durability will be tested using non-destructive methods. This system includes permeability, ultrasonic pulse velocity, relative humidity tests.
Permeability test: Permeability tests are important in relation to corrosion since both oxygen and water are required to fuel the process.
Humidity test: Measures the electrical resistance across a piece of cylindrical wood placed and sealed in a drilled hole. The electrical resistance correlates well with the humidity at a given temperature.
Resistivity test: Assesses resistance to corrosion. OhmCorr and CorMap, when used together, provide an economic and sound diagnostic system of corrosion in reinforced concrete.
Ultrasonic pulse velocity: Detects flaws and measures basic characteristics in coarse grained materials: It can identify non-homogeneous conditions such as voids, cracks, honeycombs and frozen concrete. Conforms to ASTM C-597.
Chemical Testing: The system basically consists of the following: 1) Chloride field test system (to test the chloride content within the sample); 2) ASR detect complete system (to test the alkali silica reaction); 3) Kwikcore (to collect samples); 4) Carbo detect system (to test carbonation); and 5) Chloride Ion Diffusion Testing.
Chloride Ion Diffusion Testing: which includes the following: The PROOVE'it is designed according to AASHTO T 277-81 "Rapid Determination of the Chloride Permeability of Concrete" and the ASTM C 1202-97 "Standard Test Method for Electrical Indication of Concrete Ability to Resist Chloride Ion Penetration".
Electrochemical Impedance: This sophisticated equipment that could be used on concrete both in the laboratory and in the field. This system includes the following: 1) Gamry PC4/300 Potentiostat (to run the AC impedance experiment); and 2) Gamry EIS300 Electrochemical Impedance Software (the software that runs the potentiostat. EIS runs three different EIS experiments: Potentiostatic EIS, Galvanostatic Hybrid EIS, and Mott-Schottky plots).
Ryerson University Analytical Centre (RUAC)

The Ryerson University Analytical Centre (RUAC), housed in a newly renovated laboratory located in East Kerr Hall, is a state-of-the-art suite of scientific instruments offering a wide range of capabilities for (bio-)chemical analyses. These include HPLC, GC, GC/MS, GC/Headspace, FTIR, UV-VIS, Luminescence Spectroscopy, and Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy as well as Clean Room facilities.

Road Safety Research Laboratory, MON404

This laboratory has a driving simulator integrated with a real car. The driving simulator is a personal computer-based interactive tool that has a 45 degree driver field-of-view, robust full-size driving controls with high-resolution digital sensors and speed-sensitive steering feel (provided by a computer-controlled torque motor), and Windows 2000 operating system. The simulation is fully interactive, where the driver controls both steering and speed. The equipment resources include: a driving simulator (STSIM Drive Model 300) and a real car (1991 Pontiac Firefly). The long-term objective of the driving simulators research is to develop a multidisciplinary smart human-centred road safety system that is supported by NSERC. The system focuses on human factors and their relations to the road, the driver, and advanced technologies. Current research focuses on evaluating the effects of highway geometric design on driver mental workload and collision warning systems. Future research will include developing prototype new vehicular systems.

Spatial Information Management and Applications Laboratory (SIMAL)

(CFI funded, Project Leader: Dr. S. Li, Website)

Spatial Information Management & Application Laboratory (SIMAL) supports research on the development of GIS tools, methodologies, and system architectures for the collaborative visualization, manipulation, and exploration of spatial information, to support group-based evaluation and decision-making processes of built and planned situations in urban, environmental, and transportation planning and management. The ultimate goal of the research is to develop a set of specifications, generic tools and processes that are based on open hardware, software and data standards and that can be used to easily assemble a collaborative GIS application. The following two examples may showcase this kind of application:

A group of urban, transportation and environmental specialists work on the review and assessment of a particular development project that may have impact on a variety of environment factors. Due to their work schedules and locations, they cannot have a face-to-face meeting to discuss these impacts. A Web-based collaborative GIS application is then used; allowing them to collaboratively visualize and manipulate related information based on spatial data, and to explore different plans.
A public meeting is held for interested citizens to input on a newly planned urban development (e.g. a park), using a large interactive display system to facilitate the meeting. Simultaneously, the display and meeting conversations are shared by those citizens, who are not able to physically attend, from their homes and offices using a Web browser or a handheld computer display. A group of specialists may respond to questions from citizens and interact with the shared display of the meeting using their desktop PCs which possess powerful GIS capabilities.
SIMAL laboratory is housed in a 88 square meter space in the Department of Civil Engineering at Ryerson and possesses the following facilities: (1) Computing Networking Test-bed Environment (one high-performance computer server, six high-speed desktop PCs, one laptop, and two powerful handheld computers, as well as computing, networking and development software systems and tools); (2) Interactive Meeting and Presentation System (an interactive large wall/display system with pointing devices, a roof-mounted LCD projector, and an interactive electronic whiteboard); and (3) General Computing Facility (two DELL Workstations, Precision 350 and other hardware accessories such laser printers and scanners, as well as software development tools))

Virtual Environment Laboratory (VEL)

(CFI funded, Project Leader: Dr. J. J. Li, Website)

Virtual Environment Laboratory (VEL) was established in 2003 and funded jointly by Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT), and Ryerson University with a start-up funding of $150,000. The VEL mission is to address the combined sciences and technologies that are denoted as remote sensing, photogrammetric computer vision, spatial analysis, GIS, geovisualization, virtual reality, Internet mapping, and spatial decision support systems. VEL supports research on the use of images from space, aerial and terrestrial platforms, covering a whole range of problems in satellite remote sensing, airborne mapping, and terrestrial imaging. Advanced research and development strive for automating the detection, identification, correlation and extraction of spatial, spectral, and temporal characteristics of remotely sensed imagery; modeling complex human-environmental dynamics with a focus on urban systems; and investigation of optimal representation and fusions of imaged and ancillary data for generalization, aggregation and structuring of databases. The integration of the processes associated with the extraction of information from imagery, its compilation into 3D spatial databases, and subsequent processing, management and archiving of information are important elements of the VEL tasks.

VEL is well equipped with advanced spatial data collection, image processing, distributed geocomputing, and Internet mapping systems to facilitate the advanced research and development in Geomatics Engineering and various applications in urban planning, transportation, forestry, agriculture, and environmental studies. The off-the-shelf equipment includes: Z/I ImageStation SSK digital photogrammetric workstation, Kodak DCS Pro 14n digital cameras, digital mage processing systems (PCI Geomatica 9, ERDAS Imagine 8.5), GISystems (ESRI ArcGIS, ArcView, Intergraph GeoMedia), MetaVR WorldPerfect workstation, Internet map/image server (ArcIMS, PCI Geomatica image server), GPS/GIS data collection system, 3D visualization system, Wireless GIS system, and other desktop mapping and geocomputing facilities.