Biography
Christian Viau, Ph.D., P.Eng. is an Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering at the Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering of Carleton University. He specializes in timber engineering, where he studies the response of timber structures, assemblies, elements, and connections when subjected to blast explosions, earthquakes, impacts, and other hazardous loads.
He is a voting member of the CSA S850 Technical Committee on Blast Resistant Buildings, a subcommittee member of the CSA O86 Technical Committee on Engineering Design in Wood, the Vice-Chair of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) Wood Structures Committee, and is an active member of the European Union COST Action CA20139 “Holistic design of taller timber buildings”.
Dr. Viau serves on the Carleton University Senate and Senate Executive Committee. He is also a Vice-Chair of the Faculty of Engineering & Design EDI council.
Prior to joining Carleton, Dr. Viau was an Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering at the Dept. of Civil Engineering of the Royal Military College of Canada. Before this, he was a part-time professor at the Dept. of Civil Engineering of the University of Ottawa, where he received his Bachelor’s of Applied Science, Master’s of Applied Science, and Ph.D. During his graduate degrees, Dr. Viau was awarded two Canada Graduate Scholarships from NSERC and two Ontario Graduate Scholarships from the Province of Ontario.
Current Research Interests
- Development of wood-based composite structural elements
- Cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued-laminated timber (glulam)
- Finite-element modelling of wood structural members (e.g. ABAQUS, LS-DYNA)
- Timber connections
- Behaviour of mass-timber structures under impacts and blast loads
- Behaviour of masonry walls under impact loads
- Behaviour of mass-timber assemblies subjected to earthquakes
- Multi-hazard design framework (e.g. fire and blast) for the built infrastructure