{"id":49439,"date":"2018-08-30T17:05:32","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T21:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=49439"},"modified":"2025-10-01T15:51:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T19:51:49","slug":"transport-canada-research-funds","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/transport-canada-research-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton Engineering Researchers Receive Transport Canada Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton Engineering Researchers Receive Transport Canada Funds\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

If you\u2019ve ever sat idling impatiently as an apparently endless stream of boxcars rolling past a level crossing, you won\u2019t be surprised to learn that freight trains can reach nearly four kilometres in length and carry thousands of tonnes of cargo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s economy in that scale: rail is an ultra-efficient way to ship goods over land. A single litre of fuel can move a ton of goods nearly 200 kilometre \u2013 about four times the fuel efficiency of highway shipping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"President
President Benoit-Antoine Bacon arrives with Environment Minister Catherine McKenna.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s because steel wheels on smooth rails produce little friction, and while the engine meets with wind resistance, additional cars behind it don\u2019t add much more drag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there\u2019s always room for improvement, and Prof. Mostafa El Sayed of Carleton University is bringing his aerospace engineering expertise to rail car design to make them lighter, stronger and safer using multidisciplinary design optimization employing hybrid materials, including cellular solids and composite materials. On Wednesday, Aug. 29, El Sayed – director of Carleton\u2019s Aerospace Structures and Material Engineering Lab – was awarded a $25,000 grant from Transport Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Government<\/figure>\n\n\n
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Transport Canada Funds Carleton Research<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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He was one of two Carleton researchers awarded a Clean Rail Academic Grant. Prof. Jeremy Lalibert\u00e9 also got funding for his research on the long-term environmental, fatigue and chemical exposure hazards of the lightweight materials used in freight rail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four other projects received grants through Transport Canada\u2019s Advance Connectivity and Automation in the Transportation System (ACATS) program:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Carleton Transportation Engineering Prof. Yasser Hassan received $50,000 to model how deploying connected and automated vehicles would impact regional infrastructure planning.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Kanata\u2019s Unmanned Systems Canada received a $50,000 grant to develop Canada\u2019s automated and connected vehicle talent pool through a national student competition to build working scale models of street sweepers and snow plows.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The Canadian Automobile Association received a $25,000 grant to develop a bilingual, interactive online tool to teach consumers what they need to know about autonomous vehicles.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • the City of Ottawa received $140,000 to expand its Eco-drive to Connected Vehicle pilot project, which has upgraded 12 traffic signals to wirelessly communicate timing to targeted delivery vehicles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cWe want Canada to be at the forefront of clean growth,\u201d said Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, who was on hand to announce the funding awards with Carleton President Benoit-Antoine Bacon and Rafik Goubran, vice-president (Research and International).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Rafik
    Rafik Goubran, vice-president (Research and International.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cTransportation is a significant source of emissions \u2013 around 20 per cent in Canada– but we know there are innovations we\u2019re making right here that will reduce our emissions,\u2019\u2019 she said. “New vehicle technologies are developing at an unprecedented rate. Many of the announcements I come to Carleton to make are great examples of how Canadian academics, researchers and partners are coming together to change and innovate and create really good jobs, right here in Canada, and find solutions we can export to the entire world.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    El Sayed\u2019s research could be applied anywhere there\u2019s freight rail \u2013 virtually all of the developed world.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    \u201cI was astonished to learn the weight of an empty rail car,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    Empty cars can weight upward of 25,000 kilograms. Fully loaded, they can weigh five times that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cI learned this last year through a colleague and said: `Why don\u2019t we apply the technologies we use in aerospace to rail cars.\u2019\u201d
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    Reducing the Risk of Structural Failure<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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    El Sayed has expertise in hybrid periodic cellular solids — lightweight, honeycomb-like structures that make aircraft better able to sustain the jarring forces of flight while keeping them light enough to remain aloft. Weaknesses in an aircraft\u2019s structure can lead to catastrophic failure.  The stakes are typically lower in rail transportation, but structural failure could also be disastrous.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    \u201cWhen you reduce the weight of anything, you need to be careful about the critical design,\u201d says El Sayed, who was an Aircraft Loads Engineering Specialist with Bombardier Aerospace before joining Carleton\u2019s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    El Sayed will use design optimization techniques to maximize the performance of rail system  through studying the multidisciplinary interaction between rail car structures and dynamic characteristics during operation, ensuring they\u2019re strong where their loads stress their structure, but lightweight where they can be. El Sayed envisions using additive manufacturing \u2013 3D printing \u2013 combined with traditional manufacturing techniques to supplement their steel structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThis reduces the weight significantly,\u201d he says, \u201cand that reduces the amount of power to drive that car forward, but it can also be translated into increasing the payload. Instead of having huge weight in the rail car itself, you translate added strength into a larger payload, which gives you money. It can work both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Most Canadians will never notice that rail cars are more lightweight, but they will notice if more efficient trains reduce shipping costs and efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cThe research support being announced for these transportation projects won\u2019t only help improve our transportation systems,\u201d says Goubran. \u201cThey will improve the lives of Canadians moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If you\u2019ve ever sat idling impatiently as an apparently endless stream of boxcars rolling past a level crossing, you won\u2019t be surprised to learn that freight trains can reach nearly four kilometres in length and carry thousands of tonnes of cargo. But there\u2019s economy in that scale: rail is an ultra-efficient way to ship goods […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":49440,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28,13,19],"cu_story_tag":[1918,1929,1925],"class_list":["post-49439","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_type-technology-innovation","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-engineering-and-design","cu_story_tag-president","cu_story_tag-research"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/49439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/49439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97440,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/49439\/revisions\/97440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=49439"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=49439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}