Engineering

Optimization of Maintenance Planning for a Fleet of Commercial Aircraft in Collaboration with Bombardier Aerospace

Project Leader(s): 

Postdoctoral fellow: Dr. Nima Safaei, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto

Lead faculty member: Dr. Andrew K.S. Jardine, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto

The research is aimed at providing effective long-term resource planning to effective scheduling of the maintenance tasks over a short-term horizon. The Bombardier Company provides the necessary requirements to the customers around the world to do the predefined maintenance tasks as well as unexpected repair jobs for their aircraft fleet. These services are performed as onsite or offsite, i.e., different centres or stations.

Non-academic participants: 

Multi-Scale Adaptive Modelling and Numerical Methods for Reactive Flows

Project Leader(s): 

Postdoctoral fellow: Dr. Clinton Groth, Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto

Lead faculty member: Dr. Marc Charest, Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto

Combustion of fossil fuels is responsible for a major fraction of greenhouse gas emissions and the emission of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), soot, aerosols and other harmful chemical species. Reducing Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels is one of today’s major challenges. To design new pollutant-free combustion devices, improved mathematical models and computational tools for describing reactive flows are required. These models will enable a new understanding of combustion and lead to improved combustor designs and energy systems.

Several New Mathematical Models for the Integrated Optimization and Control of Human-Friendly Parallel Robots for Advanced Healthcare and Biomedical Manipulation

Project Leader(s): 

Postdoctoral fellow: Dr. Zhen Gao, Mechanical Engineering, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Lead faculty member: Dr. Dan Zhang, Mechanical Engineering, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

This research develops a comprehensive methodology for the integrated optimization and control of human-friendly robotic technology that will be applied for the advanced healthcare and biomedical manipulation. Some original ideas, methods and algorithms are proposed in this research based on several novel mathematical models, which will benefit the development of general robotics in the direction of safety with high performance to human beings.

Novel Methods for Three-Dimensional Aerodynamic Optimization

Project Leader(s): 

Dr. David Zingg, University of Toronto

This project aims to develop state-of-the-art mathematical tools for the aerospace industry to aid in the design of more efficient aircraft. Such tools have the potential to greatly reduce the time and cost associated with the design of new aircraft, thus providing a competitive advantage to the industry. In the past year, the team made considerable progress in the development of a three-dimensional aerodynamic shape optimization algorithm. Important improvements were made to the algorithms under development, leading to improved accuracy, efficiency, and applicability.

Project team: 
Dr. J.R.R.A. Martins, University of Toronto
Dr. Carl Ollivier-Gooch, University of British Columbia
Dr. Dominique Orban, Ecole Polytechnique
Dr. Luis Rodriguez, Concordia University
Non-academic participants: 
Funding period: 
October 1, 2005 - March 31, 2010