Canadian Prairies Group of Chartered Engineers

Archive


Past Technical Events.

Calgary - 2009

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Wednesday, 11th February 2009.

"The Bow"

Guest speaker: Barry Charnish of Halcrow Yolles



Wednesday, 11th March 2009.

"Major Disasters in the Oil & Gas and Petrochemical Industries"

Guest speaker: Dr. Robert Sparrow, Senior VP Global Technology and Process, SNC Lavalin Inc., Calgary

This presentation will cover the following topics:
A brief introduction to flammability limits, gas dispersion and explosion modelling;
Early risk analysis experience in Imperial Chemical Industries;
Risk criteria used to judge the adequacy of facilities;

Overviews of the following major disasters:
(1): Flixborough Disaster
(2): PEMEX LPG Terminal Fire and Explosion, Mexico City, Mexico. 19th November 1984
(3): Bhopal Disaster
(4): Esso's gas processing plant explosion at Longford in Australia
(5): B.P. Texas City Explosion
(6): 2005 Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal fire, Buncefield

Lessons learned and not learned from major accidents;
Future developments;
Discussion.



Wednesday, 8th April 2009.

"What've Happened to the Alberta Oil Sands Projects ?"

Guest speaker: Dr. Max Wang, Ph.D., P.Eng., Discipline Engineering Manager,
Oil Sands Projects, Petro-Canada Inc.

On the surface, the dramatic crash of Alberta Oil Sands projects is due to the collapse of the world financial market and oil price. However, there are other significant and even critical contributing factors which, if not corrected, will threaten the recovery of Oil Sands industry. This presentation will examine the performance of major Oil Sands projects in Alberta in the last decade and discusses key challenges to the future of Oil Sands projects.



Wednesday, 13th May 2009.

"Laser Gas Detector Systems for Quantitative Greenhouse Gas emissions monitoring"

Guest speaker: Dr. Hamish Adam, VP Business Development, Boreal Laser, Edmonton, AB

During the past two years, Boreal Laser has worked with the Alberta Research Council, US Environmental Protection Agency and the British Geological Survey to develop two types of portable laser based gas detector for quantitative measurement of greenhouse gas (CO2 and CH4) emissions. A scanning open path laser gas detector measures multiple paths across an area source in rapid succession, enabling calculation of concentration profiles and emissions fluxes. A vehicle mounted laser detector acquires ambient CH4 or CO2 data with excellent concentration and spatial resolution. Field data from recent studies conducted in Alberta with both systems will be presented.



Wednesday, 10th June 2009.

"Building applications for digital surfaces"

Guest speaker: Dr. Frank Maurer, Professor & Acting Head,
Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary

Digital surfaces like the Microsoft Surface Computer or the Smart Digital Table are making their way from research labs into the real world. A digital table is a computer with a multi-touch horizontal display. While PCs are mostly personal devices, digital tables enable concurrent interaction of multiple users with a single application. They form the basis for innovative software systems that support group or team activities. The presentation will give an overview on digital surfaces and then illustrate the application development challenges with two systems, eHome control and APDT. The first focuses on monitoring and controlling a smart home while the second support distributed project planning for agile software development teams.



Wednesday, 9th September 2009.

"Safety is no Accident"

Guest speakers: Mike Roney, GM Technical Standards, and
Lois Gardiner, Director, Risk Management
Canadian Pacific Railway

CP's vision is to be the safest most fluid railway in North America. As part of the preservation and delivery of value to our shareholders, we have developed an integrated Enterprise Risk Management ("ERM") framework to support consistent achievement of key business objectives through daily pro-active management of risk. The objective of the program is to identify events that result from risks, thereby requiring active management. Each event identified is assessed based on the potential impact and likelihood, taking account of financial, environmental, reputation impacts, and existing management control. Risk mitigation strategies are formulated to accept, treat, transfer, or eliminate the exposure to the identified events. Lois Gardiner, Director Risk Management will provide an overview of CP's ERM framework and the processes in place to assist in delivering our risk management programs.

CP has identified the importance of utilizing technology to achieve a stronger risk position with respect to our infrastructure, equipment and trackage. Use of this technology and future developments will ensure that CP is positioned longer term to continue to be a strategic part of the supply chain for so many North American companies. Mike Roney, GM Technical standards, will provide some examples and explanation of the use of technology in lowering the stress state of the railroad.



Wednesday, 14th October 2009.

"Multi-sensor Geomatics Systems - The New Trend in Mapping Applications"

Guest speaker: Dr. Naser El-Sheimy, PEng, CRC
Professor and Head, Canada Research Chair,
Department of Geomatics Engineering, University of Calgary.

Geomatics is an emerging, innovative, key information technology for the twenty-first century that deals with the acquisition, modeling, analysis and management of spatially referenced data and its real-time applications. Geomatics includes applications such as positioning by satellites, monitoring and control through remote sensing, land information management through Geospatial Information Systems (GIS), as well as real-time time applications such as forest fire fighting and wildlife tracking.
Classical approaches of acquiring geospatial data such as aerial photogrammetry and terrestrial surveying are no longer adequate because they are either too slow, too labor intensive or do not provide the complete attribute information required for the application in question. A promising alternative to these classical techniques of data acquisition is the use of Mobile Multi-sensor Geomatics (M2G) systems that integrate various positioning, navigation and remote sensing technologies.
The benefits of these systems are numerous: autonomous operation without reference to ground control; portable deployment around the globe, be it on vehicles, helicopters, or airplanes; reduction in both the time and cost of data collection; data archival permitting additional data collection without additional field surveys; and finally the immediate transfer of sensor improvements to the overall system.
In this presentation, state of the art in multi-sensor systems and mobile mapping will be reviewed and some emerging applications and future trends will be discussed.



Wednesday, 18th November 2009.

"Recent developments at Calgary International Airport"

Guest speakers: Bob Schmitt, Senior VP Engineering and Planning, Calgary Airport Authority, and
John Charrett, Principal, Read Jones Christoffersen


The guest speakers will be giving a talk on recent developments at the Calgary International Airport and Future plans for a second runway and a new purpose built International Terminal.



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