Canadian universities providing vital auto research

In the second of our two-part series called Canada’s Other Auto Sector, we look at some of the research projects Canadians universities are working on to help forge an automotive future based on r&d, software development and technology.

From flax to tires, here's a look at eight Canadian college-industry research projects that are moving the auto sector forward.

GM COLLABORATION 'A GOOD MARRIAGE'

Queen’s University (Kingston, Ont.)

Every three weeks, Il Yong Kim and a group of his Queen’s University graduate students drive west from Kingston, Ont., to meet engineers at the General Motors of Canada technical centre in Oshawa.

What they discuss, Kim cannot say, beyond that it involves complex calculations for designing and manufacturing lightweight parts. But the project, he says, provides invaluable real-world experience.

"It is very applied and very practical work, and of course at Queens we are doing the fundamental scientific work. So it’s a good marriage."

It’s the second collaboration with GM for the associate professor of mechanical and materials engineering, who earlier helped develop thermal management systems for the battery arrays in vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt.

Kim’s focus was the channels that route liquid or air around batteries to regulate temperature. Using advanced computer modelling, he sought out designs that can work effectively with the least added weight.

With funding from the National Science and Engineering Research Council, the latest project will continue through 2022. And while Kim is unable to provide specifics, he will say it is progressing well -- "We have already produced quite nice results."

Another outcome? A former student has been hired by GM and starts work this month at the tech centre.

"When it comes to talent, both researchers and post-grad students, we have a very strong group of people in Canada," Kim says. "As long as there’s some good support and good connection with the industry, I think there’s a great potential to make an impact and to help position Canada as a leader in various emerging and important automotive areas."

LIGHT METALS, HEAVY RESEARCH

McMaster University (Hamilton, Ont.)

It isn’t all metal at McMaster University, where automaker-sponsored study subjects range from hybrid powertrains (with FCA Canada) to the safety of over-the-air software updates (Toyota) to the social costs and benefits of electric mobility (Ford).
But with the proximity to Hamilton’s steel mills, metal is -- no surprise -- a big part of McMaster’s research efforts. Metal degradation and protection are perpetual study targets, and lightweight materials, here as elsewhere, are a hot topic. A sampling of other subjects:

Development and galvanizing of third-generation steels that are stronger and more easily formed than earlier generations and are easier to join to other grades.

Development of zinc-coated press-hardened steel that is heated and then rapidly cooled in dies to form complex shapes.
Coatings (zinc, aluminum, magnesium) for dual-phase steel alloys that offer both strength and "formability."  

Development of diffusion-bonded materials (joined by solid-state welding) for high-temperature applications.

Warm forming of aluminum alloys to produce more complex stampings than traditional cold forming.

"Damage mechanisms," or causes of problems or failures, in dual-phase steels.

Thermo-electric spot welding of galvanized dual-phase steels (with the University of Waterloo).

Much of this research takes place in the well-equipped Centre for Automotive Materials and Corrosion. McMaster is one of three universities in the world to have a galvanizing simulator.

FLAX: A GROWING OPPORTUNITY

University of British Columbia (Okanagan, B.C.)

And

University of Manitoba (Winnipeg)

Organic vehicle parts aren’t new – Henry Ford showed off his "Soybean Car" in 1941, and the cotton-waste fenders of the East German 1957 Trabant were famously tasty to goats.


But research at two Canadian schools could produce a big advance in renewable components. Michael Deyholos, a biology professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and David Levin of the University of Manitoba’s engineering faculty are working with industry partners on moulded tubs for "urban utility vehicles" – used in places like airports and university campuses – that make double use of flax plants.


First, explains Deyholos, fibres from the flax stems -- typically a waste material in Canada -- replace the glass fibres used in standard composites. Next, resins are made from chemicals produced by bacteria that feed on flax oil, among other things being flax oil, among other things. The result, the researchers hope? Tubs with "lower weight, lower environmental impact, and ultimately lower production cost."

Manitoba’s non-profit Composites Innovation Centre is coordinating production, with prototypes expected this year.
Deyholos says light utility vehicles that don’t travel at highway speed are a good place to introduce novel materials.
"In the long term," he adds, "we and many others see potential for these results to be applied to other vehicles and products."

PAVEMENT ENDS. PROGRESS BEGINS


Brandon University (Brandon, Man.)

For much of rural and northern Canada, dirt and gravel roads can be an unfortunate part of daily life.


"If you live near or use gravel roads, then you know the problem," writes a Brandon University research team led by geology professor Hamid Mumin. "They generate choking and noxious dust clouds when dry, and quickly lose strength and degrade to mucky conditions when wet."


But better gravel roads are possible.

Mumin and his assistants are adding polymers and catalysts and experimenting with different clay-aggregate mixes to create more durable and vehicle-friendly surfaces.
It’s largely uncharted territory, at least in any formal way.

But the team is able to draw on ad-hoc techniques developed for mining roads by Cypher Environmental, a Winnipeg-based dust control specialist. It’s also working with local contractors and works departments.

​Cypher and the National Research Council ​are providing the bulk of funding for the project.

Some of the studies take place in labs; others involve area roads such as one unpaved stretch used by 150 loaded gravel trucks daily.


"It was built in 2015 with this technology and has gone from three times daily maintenance to once yearly, with the cost of construction within the pre-existing budget for normal reconstruction," the team reports.


Interest in the project proves that dusty, bumpy roads aren’t just a problem in Canada. The researchers say delegations have come from Honduras, India and China to examine the test roads.


"With the proper design and construction, there is almost limitless opportunity to solve some of the worst chronic road problems in a sustainable and very cost-effective manner."

CRASH STUDIES SHIFT TO ‘AVOIDANCE TECHNOLOGY


University of New Brunswick (Fredericton Campus)

The Transportation Research Group at the University of New Brunswick is one of six teams across the country under contract with Transport Canada to investigate how vehicles perform in various crash scenarios.


Historically, explains coordinator Eric Hildebrand, the team’s focus has been on how effective different safety devices – airbags, seatbelts, side air curtains, seatbelt pre-tensioners and so on – perform in a crash.


"Given that the state of vehicle crashworthiness has essentially matured," he adds, "our current mandate is starting to shift more toward the performance of crash "avoidance" technologies, e.g. autonomous braking, lane departure warning, pedestrian detection, etc."


The team has worked with Transport Canada for more than 45 years.

CLEAN DIESEL, AND STILL-CLEANER ALTERNATIVE

Université de Montréal (Montreal)

and

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (Edmonton)

Don’t let that black smoke fool you. Today’s diesel engine emits less pollution than its gasoline-powered counterpart, according to a Université de Montréal chemist who took part in a multi-nation study.

Patrick Hayes says the finding should spur regulators to turn their attention to reducing gas emissions.

“Diesel has a bad reputation because you can see the pollution, but it’s actually the invisible pollution that comes from gasoline in cars that’s worse,” the assistant professor said following publication of the study last July.

The researchers found that gas powerplants pump out 10 times more carbonaceous particulate matter than diesels with the particle filters now required in many countries – and even more at startup, when the gas engine’s catalytic converter hasn’t reached operating temperature.

Even fewer emissions could be possible with a low-carbon fuel for long-haul trucks under study at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.

In a partnership with Mack Trucks, Westcan Bulk Transport and Oberon Fuels, researchers at the Edmonton polytechnic hope to develop fuel moisture management technology for dimethyl ether (DME), a cleaner-burning, diesel fuel alternative. Their goal: removing residual water from the fuel before injection into the engine, eliminating problems of corrosion and reduced performance.

DME is made from natural gas or methanol produced from biomass feedstock, such as wood chips, and, like diesel, is ignited by compression. It is sulfur-free and burns with no particulate matter.

The project has funding from Alberta’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

LISTENING TO TIRES

Simon Fraser University (Vancouver)

Inside the rolling circle of synthetic rubber that is your car’s tire is data, lots of data.

Every bounce, every minute change in adhesion could be gold to the electronic systems meant to optimize the vehicle’s safety and efficiency.

But unlocking this information, beyond the rudimentary and often problematic pressure sensors adopted in the 1990s, has been difficult.

“Given the obvious major challenges associated with online monitoring of tire performance, tire instrumentation was ignored, or avoided, until very recently,” says Dr. Farid Golnaraghi of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Working with two postgraduate students, Golnaraghi has developed “smart” sensors for tires that include wireless transmission modules and microsensors, and can be powered not by batteries, as pressure sensors are, but by the very movements they measure.

While the system is complicated, it yields more data, more quickly, than the chassis-mounted gyros and other sensors now used in stability control and other systems.

“A lot more information comes out,” he says, and particularly for yaw motions when a car starts to slide.

Sensors aren’t the only specialty for the head of SFU’s School of Mechatronic Systems Engineering. In a project with Vancouver-based electric vehicle manufacturers, Golnaraghi developed a system to capture energy from suspension movement and use it to recharge a battery, in the same way that hybrids and electric cars generate power from brake force.

The system builds on Golnaraghi’s research into active suspension at the University of Waterloo. It uses an electric motor and non-linear mechanical amplifier at each corner to convert motion – either the low-frequency bumps of city driving or the high-frequency vibrations of highway travel – into electricity.

Neither system has found a taker – the sensors perhaps because of cost, the suspension system because battery life today gets more attention than charging. But Golnaraghi is content to work on new projects with partners including Ballard

Power Systems at the SFU lab he says is the most elaborate automotive research facility in Canada – and, more important, to send out graduates to good jobs across Canada.

“I’m very proud of that,” he says.

EVERY TURN YOU TAKE, EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE

Université de Montréal (Montreal)

And

Royal Military College (Kingston, Ont.)

Not all motorists want their insurance companies riding along with them. But some willingly surrender their privacy and allow their movements to be tracked in the hope of reduced rates if they prove to be good drivers.

The insurance companies, in turn, sift through a mountain of detail – location, speed, time of day, cornering, braking – to judge each customer’s level of risk.

The problem, however, is that the GPS data, provided through a plug-in device or an app on the driver’s phone, may not be specific enough to allow accurate assessments.

“The GPS signal is often off by one, two or three metres. It can sometimes look like a car is driving on the roof of a building or in the ditch, if you look at the raw data,” says Aurélie Labbe, an associate professor with the Université de Montréal business school.

With support from Intact Insurance and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Labbe and her HEC Montréal team are working on “map-matching” to refine the GPS results.

The first phase involves driving through Montreal and comparing their GPS data with the actual routes to establish the margin of error and determine map-matching algorithms. A second stage will see the researchers analyze the routes taken by some 350,000 users -- about 15 terabytes of GPS data.

More precise positioning is also the goal of a project led by Aboelmagd Noureldin of the Royal Military College in Kingston. Here, however, the focus is on linking GPS data to the signals from the radar and lidar systems increasingly showing up in collision-avoidance systems.