Civil Engineering

Doug VanDine answers the question "What are you doing to keep out of trouble these days"? He describes his transition from being a geotechnical design engineer to a researcher and writer of geotechnical engineering history. His first publication gave a history of the Drynoch Landslide in BC, which has been moving for over 6,000 years. He has also researched and published biographiesy of Robert Leggett, " a father of geotechnical engineering in Canada" and Major Leslie Charles, who located much of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill Manitoba a century ago.

Geotechnical engineer Doug VanDine describes his experiences as an employee of a consulting engineering firm, a professor at Queen's University in Kingston, and as a sole practitioner engineering consultant. Drawn to geotechnical engineering by his love of math, science, and the outdoors, he worked in the western Arctic on three projects after completing his undergraduate degree at Queen's University in 1972. He returned to Queen's to earn a Master's degree that included a thesis based on the Drynoch Landslide in British Columbia, and notes that his subsequent career as a sole practitioner engineering consultant "kept coming back to landslides". He taught geotechnical engineering at Queen's for four years, developing two-week summer fieldwork projects that engaged students in the hands-on practice of the discipline. After purchasing the contents of his office at Thurber Engineering for $500, he founded VanDine Geological Engineering. His many projects include pioneering studies on debris flows that led to assessing and developing mitigation strategies for debris flows on the Squamish and Coquihalla Highways in British Columbia. He also served on the Oil and Gas Appeals Tribunal, the Forestry Appeals Commission and the Environmental Appeals Board in British Columbia, and conducted practice reviews and wrote guidelines for the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC. He describes his transition from being a geotechnical design engineer to a researcher and writer of geotechnical engineering history. His first publication gave a history of the Drynoch Landslide in BC, which has been moving for over 6,000 years. He has also researched and published biographies of Robert Leggett, " a father of geotechnical engineering in Canada" and Major Leslie Charles, who located much of the Hudson Bay Railway from The Pas to Churchill Manitoba a century ago.

Civil transportation engineer Dr. Chan Wirasinghe describes the basis of his analytical models to optimize the geometric design of airports. In particular, selecting the number of "pier fingers" and the number of departure/arrival gates at each finger, defines the average time it will take a passenger to walk to the gates. Other airports have "satellites", so the analysis can determine the optimal number, size and location of the satellites. He has worked with airport authorities in Hong Kong, Soeul, and Pittsburgh.

Civil engineer Emily Cheung describes changes to her field of engineering since she started practice. She highlights the more holistic approach to designing structures like bridges – now the designer has to think about the environmental aspects, the fluid mechanics and impact on fish if it is a river crossing, the consideration of cultural aspects and social impacts. It is no longer just about getting the structure right or getting the hydraulics right – or what is the cheapest structure!

Civil and environmental engineer Sarah Devereaux describes one of her projects, the "Million Dollar Hole". Her company was retained to work on the decommissioning of the United States naval base in Argentia, Newfoundland. A number of environmental "situations" were left, including the "Million Dollar Hole", a large repository for "everything you can think of, like tanks, trucks". She oversaw digging up the hole, recycling material whenever possible, over a two-year period.

Wind engineer Dr. Nicholas Isyumov talks about his work on the Sears Building – now the Willis Tower – in Chicago during the late '60s. It was to be the tallest building in the world, taller than New York's World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was sensitive to cross-wind dynamic excitations due to vortex shedding. The Sears Building had a more irregular shape – only two of the nine modules extended to the full building height – so vortex shedding was mitigated but significant wind-induced torques were possible. These combined drag, cross-wind, and torsional loadings eventually were codified.

Civil engineer Dr. Susan Tighe describes her work in leading a team from across Canada to develop the Pavement Management Asset Design and Management Guide for the Transportation Association of Canada. The guide represents a "crown jewel", containing the results of many laboratory projects she worked on with various graduate students and many field projects, including over 100 test sections located in Canada and internationally. Sophisticated modeling and life-cycle costing were used to develop the recommended best practices. She also briefly describes some of her 200-odd research projects.

Chan Wirasinghe wanted to be a civil engineer from about Grade Six, and completed his first engineering degree at his birthplace, Sri Lanka. At the time, Sri Lanka had compulsory civil service, so although he did not take transportation courses as an undergraduate, he was recruited to work for two years at the Department of Highways, which germinated his interest in transportation engineering. An American Fulbright Scholarship supported his Masters and PhD studies at the University of California at Berkeley under the supervision of Dr. Gordon Newell. His research involved the application of mathematical analysis to model public transport systems. He then joined the University of Calgary as an Assistant Professor in Civil Engineering, pleased to be the third transportation professor on faculty there. His subsequent research included: further work in public transportation systems; optimizing the geometrical design of airports; and, response to natural disasters, particularly tsunamis and tornados, through the International Institute of Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering for 12 years, overseeing the renaming of the Faculty as the Schulich School of Engineering for a total matched donation of $50 million, then the largest donation to a Canadian engineering school. He also led initiatives to increase the number of women faculty members and woman students in the Faculty.