Civil Seminar

Event Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016

PhD Candidate: Connell Miller
Full-Scale Testing of Air-Permeable Multi-Layer Cladding Systems

Abstract:
One of the most common failures observed in damaging windstorms is the roofing and wall systems of residential, wood-frame buildings, particularly the exterior air-permeable multi-layer cladding (e.g., vinyl siding, discontinuous metal roofing, etc.). Limited design and test standards exist for these systems. Wind loads on multi-layer cladding systems are complicated because the loads on each particular layer are poorly understood and difficult to quantify. This is because of pressure equalization, which is the mechanism whereby the pressures on the external building surface are transmitted through the air-permeable outer layer to interior layers. In the past few years, different full-scale methods such as the Pressure Loading Actuator (PLA) system at UWO, and the full-scale wind tunnel at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) have provided guidance on the design of these systems. This presentation will examine the differences between these facilities by analyzing testing of air-permeable multi-layer systems both at UWO and IBHS. The results obtained from this study have confirmed that some standards for testing multi-layer cladding systems are inadequate and in need of modification

 

PhD Candidate: Sohom Mandal
Climate change impacts on Canadian water resources

Abstract:
The objective of the study to investigate different sources of uncertainty in the assessment of the climate change impacts on total monthly precipitation in the Campbell River basin, British Columbia, Canada. These sources of uncertainty are analyzed separately for two future time periods (2036 to 2065 and 2066 to 2095). An uncertainty metric is calculated based on the variation in simulated precipitation due to the choice of GCMs, emission scenarios, and downscaling models. The results show that the selection of a downscaling method provides the largest amount of uncertainty when compared to the choice of GCM and/or emission scenario. However, the choice of GCM provides a significant amount of uncertainty if downscaling methods are not considered. This assessment work is conducted at ten different locations in the Campbell River basin.

Civil Seminar