CCE June/July 2020

For professional engineers in private practice

JUNE/JULY 2020

Canada’s acoustical consulting landscape Workplace diversity and inclusion Insulating balconies and parapets

CROSSLAMINATED TIMBER Benefits for structural engineering

www.canadianconsultingengineer.com

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Improving air quality. sales@us.ebmpapst.com

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contents June/July 2020 Volume 61, No. 4

features Cover photo courtesy Hutton Offices See page 20

See page 12

Pedestrian Safety During COVID-19 Physical distancing has been difficult on many sidewalks, forcing pedestrians onto roads with cars and trucks. Addressing the issue has required new perspectives.

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Improving Insulation for Retirement Residences A recent construction project south of Vancouver has insulated balconies and—more unusually—parapets with structural thermal breaks.

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Acoustical Consulting: Controlling Noise and Vibrations A regulatory patchwork across Canada poses challenges for engineers called upon to document the effects of projects’ noise on public health and welfare.

By Todd Busch, P.Eng.

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Toward Uniformly Safe Parking Lot Lighting A new study could help engineers design more efficient lighting systems that meet people’s needs for safety and security in outdoor parking lots.

By John D. Bullough, Jennifer A. Brons, Jeremy D. Snyder, Pierre Gallant and Robert Singlehurst

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departments Comment

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Up Front

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Products

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on topic Next issue: LRT station design, elevator safety and more.

LEGAL

CONVERSATION

Workplace diversity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords. They are important business strategies for engineering firms. (And they do not mean the same thing.)

By Gita Anand 18

David Moses, P.Eng., principal with Toronto-based Moses Structural Engineers, discusses the appeal of crosslaminated timber (CLT) for 20 new buildings.

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Canadian Consulting Engineer

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engineer FOR PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS IN PRIVATE PRACTICE

comment

C A N A D I A N C O N S U LT I N G

Editor

Peter Saunders (416) 510-5119 psaunders@ccemag.com Senior Publisher

Coming together, staying apart

Maureen Levy (416) 510-5111 mlevy@ccemag.com Media Designer

Andrea M. Smith Contributing Editor

H

ave you been feeling isolated lately, not just from everyday life, but also—more specifically—from the rest of Canada’s consulting engineering community? With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many firms ramped up their work-from-home (WFH) procedures and policies. And while technology has made it easier than ever for professionals to stay in touch with members of their own teams they might normally see in office settings or in the field, they are perhaps less likely to encounter others beyond their immediate collaborative circle.

One aspect of the business that has been particularly hard hit is the realm of conferences and trade shows. Just like everything from major league sports to public festivals, these events have not been safe to schedule and run during the pandemic.

As I mentioned last issue in this space, some in-person conferences were turned into virtual events, rather than delayed or cancelled. Examples that come to mind include the inaugural Fenestration & Glazing Industry Alliance (FGIA) summer conference from June 23 to 25 and, with an especially high profile, the ASHRAE annual conference from June 29 to July 2, following the June 22 release of the conference’s 80-session technical program.

Virtual events aren’t a new idea. In the U.S., the software platforms behind them first became popular following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as many companies understandably slowed or halted their business travel plans over the short term.

That said, the response to a truly global pandemic has meant taking the idea to a whole new level. You may well have already participated in more virtual events over the past few months than in all the years leading up to 2020.

With that in mind, we know it is our job to find new ways to support our readers in these unusual times. Our first major change was to take the annual Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards fully online, eschewing hard-copy submissions and an in-person jury day in favour of digital file transfers and videoconferencing.

Next, we are planning to hold a virtual event where Canada’s consulting engineering community can truly come together while staying apart. We want to address the problems, challenges and new opportunities you are already facing in today’s market and may encounter in the months to come.

Details are forthcoming, but in the meantime, I actively encourage you to share your thoughts with me. What do you want this event to provide? How can it best meet your needs? Please let me know at psaunders@ccemag.com.

I look forward to hearing from as many of you as possible! And of course, I am open to hearing your questions, too.

Peter Saunders

Rosalind Cairncross, P.Eng. Editorial Advisors

Bruce Bodden, P.Eng., Gerald Epp, P.Eng., Chris Newcomb, P.Eng., Laurier Nichols, ing., Jonathan Rubes, P.Eng., Paul Ruffell, P.Eng., Andrew Steeves, P.Eng. Circulation Manager

Shawn Arul (416) 510-5181 sarul@annexbusinessmedia.com Account Co-ordinator

Cheryl Fisher (416) 510-5194 cfisher@annexbusinessmedia.com Vice-president/Executive Publisher

Tim Dimopoulos (416) 510-5100 tdimopoulos@annexbusinessmedia.com COO

Scott Jamieson sjamieson@annexbusinessmedia.com CANADIAN CONSULTING ENGINEER

is published 7 times per year

by Annex Business Media 111 Gordon Baker Road, Suite 400, Toronto, ON M2H 3R1 Tel: (416) 442-5600 Fax: (416) 510-6875 or (416) 442-2191 EDITORIAL PURPOSE: Canadian Consulting Engineer magazine covers innovative engineering projects, news and business information for professional engineers engaged in private consulting practice. The editors assume no liability for the accuracy of the text or its fitness for any particular purpose.

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up front

PEOPLE

Engineers Canada elected Jean Boudreau, P.Eng., as president for 2020 to 2021. A senior transportation specialist with GEMTEC Consulting Engineers and Scientists, headquartered in Fredericton, N.B., Boudreau has more than 30 years’ experience in civil engineering, highway planning and design and construction projects.

Arup

Arup promoted the following 10 associates working with its Canadian offices: • John Ferraro, finance manager (Toronto).

• Mauritz Kruger, digital technology specialist (Toronto).

• Omar Moussa, digital bridge asset manager (Montreal).

• Rahul Nanda, project control specialist for buildings, airports and runways (Toronto).

• Monika Nandy, human resources (HR) business partner (Toronto).

• Laurent Ngoc, project manager and strategic advisor (Montreal).

• Paul Paquet, P.Eng., structural engineer for buildings (Toronto).

• Aydin Pisirici, P.Eng., structural engineer (Toronto).

• B e n j a m i n Potau, P.Eng., civil engineer (Montreal).

• Peter Preston, P.Eng., civil Benjamin engineer Potau (Toronto).

Image courtesy SMS Engineering

Engineers Canada

SMS designs portable ICUs made of shipping containers In response to COVID-19, Winnipegbased SMS Engineering designed portable health-care treatment units based on repurposed shipping containers, freely offering the drawings as ‘open source’ for anyone to develop.

SMS is already experienced in planning and managing health-care projects, including tertiary treatment facilities that take years to build from start to finish, but the firm has also long used cargo shipping containers for the controlled agriculture industry, as they provide an airtight environment against disease and other external factors. Hence, the company could apply the same concept to the health-care sector as a ‘micro-hospital’ that can be deployed rapidly and inexpensively.

The design is based on a scalable model, starting with 10 beds, with heat recovery systems to minimize energy use and HEPA filtration to maintain healthy air. Each pod features patient headwall, patient care bonding and medical gas connections.

Power is provided with a prefabricated electrical room, which incorporates automatic transfer switches to enable connections to both a utility/ customer power source and a backup generator. Finally, portable handwashing stations eliminate the need for plumbing during installation.

Technical Safety BC lets engineers register designs online Technical Safety BC has reportedly become British Columbia’s first regulator to move equipment design registration—as required by the Safety Standards Act and Regulations—fully online.

With the shift to virtual processes, engineers no longer need send large packages via courier to submit their designs. Instead, they can log in, use interactive forms, attach documents, drawings, notes and specifications to their applications and track the progress of their submissions. Further, they can view or recall previously registered designs and communicate with Technical Safety BC’s own engineering team.

Design registration can now be submitted online for boilers, pressure equipment, welding, procedures and gas technologies. Other technologies will follow.

WinSETT Centre launches GoFundMe campaign The Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology (WinSETT Centre) launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise donations during the pandemic, as its sources of revenue— including face-to-face, facilitated workshops and sponsorships—have dried up for now, with no sense of

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Photo courtesy WinSETT Centre

up front

RINA completes reconstruction of Genoa’s Ponte Morandi RINA has completed main construction of the replacement bridge for the Polcevera Viaduct—also known as Ponte Morandi, named for the engineer who originally designed it—in Genoa, Italy, approximately 18 months after its predecessor tragically collapsed during a rainstorm, killing 43 people.

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Photo courtesy RINA

when they will resume.

“My hope is the pandemic does not reverse the progress we have made for women in engineering,” says Marg Latham, the centre’s chair since 2019, who explains the organization does not meet criteria for pandemic-response funding. “The new normal may mean fewer participants in larger spaces, with no change in our tuition, which is kept low for early-career women.”

With a goal of $125,000, the campaign is raising funds that will go toward redeveloping the WinSETT Centre’s website and transitioning its workshops for online delivery. Since its founding 10 years ago, the nonprofit organization has delivered its leadership program workshops to more than 4,000 women in major centres coast to coast in Canada.

“Our vision is a world where women participate fully in science, engineering, trades and technology,” says Latham.

To donate, visit www.gofundme. com/f/help-winsett-invest-in-nextgeneration-women.

with RINA, the Genoa-based company commissioned to manage the demolition and rebuilding of the bridge, have spent more than 150,000 hours on the project, reportedly delivering it within budget and on time.

RINA’s responsibilities have spanned approval processes, operational activities, works supervision and health and safety management, the latter of which was particularly important when COVID-19 struck Italy. The company implemented risk-mitigation protocols, trained staff and provided mandatory self-protection measures, from systematic daily temperature monitoring to group shifts that allowed prompt isolation as needed.

The complex scale of the civil engineering project yielded more than 3,000 technical documents, approximately 600 audits of technical, quality, safety and environmental aspects of the plan and 2,000 inspections of the plants that produced the materials and structural elements, including sheet metal, concrete and reinforcement rods. The process involved more than 250 technical planning and execution and 220 technical operation co-ordination meetings.

“By applying advanced project management capabilities, it was possible to start the reconstruction of the new bridge at the same time as the demolition of the remains of the former bridge,” says Roberto Carpaneto, CEO of RINA Consulting. “Seeing the deck joining the sides of the valley is an emotional experience, in a positive way. It is a demonstration Italy can continue to function and be strong

PEOPLE

Aercoustics Engineering

Toronto-based Aercoustics Engineering, which specializes in acoustics, noise and vibration, promoted Anthony Roppa to principal. He has led business development efforts since joining the firm in 2013. Aercoustics also promoted Derek Flake, P.Eng., Michael Medal, P.Eng., Duncan Halstead, P.Eng., and Dylan Salazaar, P.Eng., to the newly created position of associate.

JLR

Ottawa-headquartered J.L. Richards & Associates (JLR) renewed its executive leadership team. The firm’s 11-member board of directors elected Saverio Parrotta, P.Eng., as CEO. He succeeds Guy Saverio Cormier, P.Eng., who Parrotta was previously both president and CEO, but now will serve only as president—a role for which he has been re-elected for the ninth Guy Cormier consecutive year— and transition away from overseeing day-to-day business and engaging in non-board-related meetings.

And René succeeding Parrotta Lambert in his previous role as VP is René Lambert, P.Eng., who has been a member of the board since 2015.

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even in the most difficult moments.

This viaduct is an important symbol.”

The new bridge is expected to open to the public in July.

Photos courtesy Hatch

Hatch delivers cleaning supplies to remote Indigenous communities

Following the onset of COVID-19 and the challenges of meeting increased demand for safety products in the face of a disrupted supply chain and restricted community access, Hatch says it has delivered care packages of cleaning supplies to every family in the Webequie and Marten Falls First Nations, two remote Indigenous communities in northern Ontario.

The delivery comprised 300 bundles of enough household cleaning supplies (examples pictured) to last

six months, to help protect community members in their homes during the global pandemic.

Both communities are more than 500 km away from their nearest major city or town, with no all-weather road.

As land access is only available during the winter by ice roads, the delivery had to be made by plane.

“Imagine having empty shelves and the only way to get to the next store is by airplane,” says Chelsie Klassen, Hatch’s global director of Indigenous engagement. “Everyone should have access to supplies needed to keep their families safe. We didn’t waste any time and shipped the supplies immediately.”

OPG awards nuclear engineering agreements to SNC-Lavalin Ontario Power Generation (OPG) awarded two additional five-year vendor-of-record (VOR) agreements for engineering services to Candu Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of SNCLavalin that specializes in nuclear reactor products and services.

Aligning with SNC’s strategy to move further toward engineering services, the agreements for OPG’s Dar-

Photo courtesy OPG

up front

lington, Pickering and Western Waste Management Facility (WWMF) sites address design support for nuclear plant modifications and balance of plant engineering. The scope of work will include software engineering and categorization, cybersecurity services, human factors engineering, computer system engineering and project management support.

“While the niche engineering agreement covers another round of services we’ve previously carried out, the nuclear engineering services represent a growth opportunity for us,” sais Sandy Taylor, president of SNC’s nuclear division. “We look forward to using our know-how to support future OPG engineering projects.”

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Canadian Consulting Engineer

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transportation

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Pedestrian Safety During

COVID-19 The pandemic has redefined perspectives of safe streets.

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otions of road safety and ‘Vision Zero’ initiatives are relative to their surrounding context. In recent months, responses to the global COVID-19 pandemic have greatly reduced traffic on Canada’s urban streets, but also created new challenges. Safe distancing, in particular, has been very difficult for pedestrians travelling on many existing sidewalks, forcing them onto roads among cars and trucks. Addressing this issue has required new perspectives.

In Vancouver, select roads and paths were closed to all vehicular traffic to help limit pedestrian crowding.

These included eastbound lanes on Beach Avenue from Stanley Park to Hornby Street and, for that matter, Stanley Park itself, excluding Causeway/Highway 99.

Ottawa’s mayor, Jim Watson, responded to local calls to close quiet roadways to vehicular traffic by suggesting people could keep safely to sidewalks on less-busy streets, while also offering to consider adding a ‘bump out’ onto the street in front of a busy store where pedestrians must line up outdoors.

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In Edmonton, push-button pedestrian signals were made automatic at 56 intersections in busy areas and near hospitals, eliminating the need for people to touch them during a time when such public surfaces could spread the coronavirus. The city also converted some car and bike lanes to shared-use space for both pedestrians and cyclists to add distancing space in busy areas.

The challenge went viral (no pun intended) after Toronto’s Daniel Rotsztain constructed a social distancing ‘machine’—a series plastic and rubber tubes circling his body at the recommended 2-m radius—for his friend Bobby Gadda to test on the city’s busy sidewalks. The resulting video showed Gadda unable to avoid colliding with fellow pedestrians, cyclists, light poles and even vehicles.

While Toronto’s mayor, John Tory, initially did not support closing street lanes to cars, preferring instead to encourage everyone to stay home as much as possible, he later announced the ‘CurbTO’ initiative to identify pinch points along sidewalks and block off curb lanes accordingly, for

both pedestrian and temporary parking zones.

By early May, Toronto’s plans went further, aiming to close or adjust a full 50 km of city streets to better accommodate safe distancing for pedestrians and cyclists as Ontario’s COVID-19 lockdown is gradually opened up. The same plans also involve accelerating the deployment of long-planned bike lanes.

In Montreal, similarly, plans were recently announced to add approximately 200 km of ‘active safe routes,’ including a mix of widened walkways, dedicated bike lanes and slower-traffic zones, across the city this summer.

Such changes are intended to be only temporary.

At press time, it is still unclear what kinds of permanent changes Canadian society could face in the wake of the pandemic, but one area of specific interest to consulting engineers, admittedly among many others, will be how to design safer streetscapes for pedestrians now that we understand how their livelihood can be threatened not only by motor vehicles, but also by each other.

CCE

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By Peter Saunders

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Canadian Consulting Engineering

Awards 2020 It’s time to celebrate all the award winners and partners for their project expertise

Advertising space closing September 11, 2020 For advertising contact: Maureen Levy • mlevy@ccemag.com • Tel: 416-510-5111 For more information on the awards please visit – acec.ca The awards are co-sponsored by

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building envelope

Improving Insulation for

RETIREMENT RESIDENCES

A new project south of Vancouver is insulating parapets and balconies with structural thermal breaks.

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long the Johnston Road Corridor in White Rock, B.C., part of the Metro Vancouver area, PARC Retirement Living is deploying new building envelope technology to support a sustainable, energy-efficient design for its new Oceana residence.

“We’re an owner/operator, so energy efficiency is very important to us, not only for our residents’ comfort, but also because of lower operating costs and heating and cooling bills,” says Bob Fritz, PARC’s director of construction.

As with two of the company’s other Vancouver-area retirement residences, Cedar Springs and Westerleigh, Oceana PARC’s energy-saving measures include a green roof with drought-tolerant vegetation. The building envelope incorporates 6-in. thick semi-rigid stone wool insulation on the exterior and 3.5-in. thick fibreglass Batt (blanket) insulation on the interior, along with 5,970 ft of Schöck North America’s Isokorb structural thermal breaks to help reduce energy loss significantly at the complex’s balconies.

Additional energy-saving measures at Oceana PARC include heat recovery ventilators, rooftop high-efficiency boilers feeding hot water storage tanks, a hot water recirculation system and the exclusive use of LED lighting.

Notably, in what represents a first in the Metro Vancouver area, the com-

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plex’s concrete parapets are, like the balconies, insulated from the heated building interior using structural thermal breaks.

Using breaks against bridges Thermal bridges occur where balconies, parapets, canopies, rooftop equipment and other structural elements penetrate the building envelope. Like cooling fins, these penetrations draw heat from interior concrete and structural steel through the insulated envelope and dissipate it to the exterior.

Thermal bridges increase energy use, costs and, indirectly, carbon emissions. They also chill the interior side of structural penetrations, creating an environment that supports condensation and mould growth and resulting in uncomfortably cold floors adjacent to balconies. This issue is of particular significance for those living in retirement residences.

Out of Oceana PARC’s 199 residential units, 181 include balconies.

As mentioned, they are insulated in the same manner as those at Cedar Springs and Westerleigh PARC, using Isokorb structural thermal breaks.

The parapets, however, presented additional concerns, which the project team sought to mitigate by installing Isokorb Type CPA structural thermal breaks, specifically engineered for concrete parapet-to-roof-slab connections.

Insulating structural penetrations Each of the complex’s 2,000-plus structural thermal break modules comprises a longitudinal block of foam insulation traversed by rebar, to be cast into the slab on one side and the balcony or parapet on the other, providing load-bearing support equivalent to that of monolithic extensions of floor and roof slabs. The rebar crossing the foam insulation is made of stainless steel for lower thermal conductivity and superior corrosion resistance compared to carbon steel rebar.

Schöck reports its concrete-to-concrete structural thermal breaks reduce

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building envelope

Photos courtesy Schöck North America

202,800-sf tower housing the 199 residential units. A two-storey auxiliary building adds another 8,600 sf of gross floor area and is connected to the main building with a closed bridge.

There is also a two-level, 68,500-sf underground garage.

There are parapets on perimeters at two levels of the auxiliary building and at the roof of the main tower, for a combined total of 1,100 ft. Certainly, avoiding thermal bridging along such spans would be noticeably beneficial.

heat energy loss by up to 90% at envelope penetrations and up to 14% for the building overall, depending on the number and length of balconies and parapets, among other variables.

“On our Cedar Springs and Westerleigh retirement residences, we installed the thermal breaks in the slabs at the balconies and eyebrows,” Fritz explains. “In these buildings, we didn’t have conditions where we had upstand parapets. While working on the Oceana PARC design, where we have quite a lot of parapets, we incorporated those thermal breaks as well.”

The complex features two buildings. The main building is a 23-storey,

How to prevent heat loss for parapets The conventional method for reducing a building’s heat loss through parapets is to wrap them with an insulation barrier. Such wrappings are prone to damage and water penetration, however, particularly where railings, covers or fasteners pierce the insulation, leading to an increased need for repair and maintenance.

Also, parapets wrapped with insulation barriers remain part of the heated building mass. Those insulated and supported by structural thermal breaks, on the other hand, sit outside of the heated building envelope and above the roof slab, retaining heat energy more efficiently while supporting loads equivalent to monolithic parapet structures.

For Oceana PARC, the structural thermal breaks are longitudinal assemblies fabricated to the same widths as the complex’s parapets. Graphite-enhanced expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation is placed between stainless steel reinforcing bars, creating a structural module capable of transferring the loads from the parapet to the concrete roof slab that supports it, while minimizing thermal conductivity between the two concrete masses.

U-shaped stainless steel rebar projecting from the underside of the module is cast into the roof floor slab, while vertically oriented stainless steel rebar projecting from the topside of the module is cast into the parapet, transferring moment (static rotation-

al) and shear (unaligned) forces from the parapet to the concrete slab structure. After the slab is cast, insulated infill units are placed between the modules to complete the continuous thermal break along the length of the parapet upstand wall.

Insulating with structural thermal breaks is also intended to simplify the formwork process, reducing construction costs by up to 10% compared to wrapping a parapet with insulation.

It also allows the internal surface of the parapet to be finished for terrace applications.

“This was a new product for us and for Ventana Construction, which installed it,” says Fritz. “It was a bit of a learning curve to make sure we got the installation right. To help, Schöck did a formal inspection before we poured the concrete.”

Setting precedents The recently completed project has an opportunity to set a local precedent for sustainability, as it serves as a cornerstone for further development in White Rock’s rezoned urban town centre, anchoring an anticipated neighbourhood revival.

“A number of other properties are in for development permits, but we’re the first in construction,” says Fritz.

Also, as mentioned, PARC is the first developer/owner of senior residences in the Vancouver area to use structural thermal breaks for both balcony and parapet applications.

“We’re always looking to improve on the comfort, efficiency and sustainability of our facilities,” says Fritz.

“White Rock was the perfect setting for us to work with Schöck on incorporating thermal breaks for parapets.

If your facility has parapets, these have CCE significant benefits for you.”

With files from Schöck North America, PARC Retirement Living, Ventana Construction, Besharat Friars Architects and RJC Engineers. For more information, visit www.schock-na.com, www.parcliving.ca, www.ventanaconstruction.com, www.besharatfriars.com and www.rjc.ca.

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acoustical consulting

Controlling Noise & A regulatory patchwork poses challenges for professional engineers.

By Todd Busch, P.Eng.

F

or projects subject to environmental regulation and permitting, engineers are called upon to document the effects of noise on public health and welfare. Indeed, the work involved in acoustical consulting is almost invariably performed by professional engineers.

In Ontario, by way of example, land-use planning studies of new developments’ noise impacts are explicitly regulated by Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO). In Alberta, meanwhile, environmental regulators typically refuse to accept any engineering reports that are not sealed by a P.Eng. That said, the level of effort to address environmental noise control varies from province to province, while environmental vibration is largely considered on an ad hoc basis. Different approaches are found between federal, provincial and local governments and their corresponding statutory and regulatory imperatives.

Meanwhile, there are a variety of circumstances where lease agreements with government organizations contain provisions for limiting environmental noise, where noise-control

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mediation is government-ordered and where public disclosure of existing and expected health impacts are not made despite the prospect of adverse effects on people and wildlife. Further, there are varied assessments of the significance of noise, including whether it should merely be viewed as a nuisance factor or more tangible in terms of its health effects.

Federal Noise control is addressed in several ways at the federal level.

Transport Canada uses a Noise Exposure Forecast (NEF) system to help planners manage land use near airports, by measuring the noise of aircraft in their vicinity. The system considers loudness, frequency, duration, time of occurrence and tone, among other factors.

The Canada Transportation Agency (CTA) investigates public complaints about railway noise and vibration, with the expectation the complainants, railways and municipalities will work together first to arrive at a resolution.

The Impact Assessment Agency

of Canada (IIAC), meanwhile, determines if a project is within its regulatory jurisdiction and requires noise and/or vibration studies. Other federal bodies defer to its mandate.

Among these bodies, the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) addresses noise emanating from oil and gas projects, while the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) does the same for noise and vibration issues relating to nuclear power plants.

Provincial Provinces that have enacted environmental noise regulations include Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.

Ontario’s Environmental Protection Act (EPA), passed in 1990, defines ‘contaminants’ to include sounds and vibrations “resulting directly or indirectly from human activities that causes or may cause an adverse effect.” This statute has resulted in the regulation of noise under the NPC-300 Environmental Noise Guideline, developed

by Ontario’s ministry of environment and climate change (MOECC).

Projects throughout the province that are assessed with reference to this guideline must secure an Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) before further permitting at the local jurisdictional level. The process of securing an ECA includes the submis-

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acoustical consulting

e & Vibrations sion of an Acoustic Assessment Report (AAR), review by the provincial regulator and completion of an Acoustic Audit to document real-world conformance with the prescribed limits on sound levels within NPC-300, which defines four land-use zones to characterize receptors.

Much as the ministry of transportation addresses provincial highways through its Environmental Guide for Noise in terms of their effects on residential receptors, the permitting of new developments across the province typically considers noise through the land-use planning process. Plans to construct new residential communi-

Collage courtesy Todd Busch Consulting

ties in proximity to existing properties and infrastructure like railways, highways, airports and industrial sites with notable noise emissions are assessed to determine if compliance with the criteria of NPC-300 is feasible.

In Alberta, noise is addressed by Directive 038, which the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) applies to oil, gas, coal, chemical and fertilizer plants, refineries, electrical generation and related industrial facilities, and by Rule 012, which the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) applies to gas utility pipelines, hydroelectric developments, power plants, substations and transmission lines. The criteria

Photo courtesy Alberta Wind Energy Corporation

The Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) applies Rule 012 to address noise relating to substations, transmission lines, power plants, gas pipelines and hydroelectric developments.

and procedures are virtually identical, focusing on nighttime noise and applying to areas where people sleep.

In British Columbia, the ministry of transportation and infrastructure regulates highway noise with its Section 1600 Noise Policy, which applies to receptors across residences, educational facilities, hospitals, libraries, places of worship, museums, passive parks and other lands where quiet and tranquility are considered essential attributes.

The BC Oil and Gas Commission provides some oversight over resource extraction industries through a noise guideline, patterned closely after Alberta’s Directive 038. Unlike Alberta, however, where regulatory compliance is mandatory, the guideline in B.C. is a discretionary document.

In Quebec, a regulation for processing noise complaints and setting forth requirements for companies that generate them addresses fixed sources like material handling, manufacturing, purification equipment, ventilators and on-site motor vehicles.

It does not apply to quarries, sand pits and bituminous concrete plants, which are already prescribed by regulation, nor to agriculture. Four land uses are defined, each with distinct allowable daytime and nighttime noise levels; the most restrictive include land for single-family detached and semi-detached dwellings (including existing homes in agricultural zones), schools, hospitals and other healthservice facilities.

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acoustical consulting

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The BC Oil and Gas Commission’s noise guideline is patterned closely after the Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER’s) Directive 038.

Local Regulations are much more of a patchwork at the local level of government.

Cities like Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, and Montreal have policies addressing roadway and highway noise in land-use planning and also consider other sources, like railways.

Toronto, seemingly uniquely, has a bylaw constraining the allowable vibrations from construction activities.

(Everywhere else, vibration issues are considered on an ad hoc basis.)

Other cities typically have no regulations to address noise or vibrations from new project sites. All of them have noise bylaws that focus on human behaviours, but these are ill-suited as tools for land-use planning.

Lease and contractual agreements Other examples of governmentimposed noise control include lease agreements in British Columbia for wind farms, such as Bear Mountain Wind Park near Dawson Creek. Administrators of crown lands have embedded covenants limiting the allowable noise levels at residential receptors in proximity to the wind turbines.

Such provisions are typically only known about by the people involved in a project, including those retained to provide services related to assessment of noise. In Ottawa, for example, noise and vibration provisions within a design-build contract for light-rail tran14

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sit (LRT) were only accessible to the public through a bureaucratic process.

Current challenges It is apparent the legal, regulatory and contractual framework for control of environmental noise across Canada is a patchwork affair. Different approaches are found between different levels of government. And different private-sector companies, such as railways, may be collocated yet subject to different regulatory oversight.

There are also technical impediments for assessing noise in the context of overall exposures for communities, due to varying metrics used to characterize such exposure. The IIAC mandate is to consider cumulative effects and impacts, but this could prove challenging, given the inconsistent approaches to characterize noise from airports, railways, highways and industrial sites.

Finally, the lack of public disclosure over noise control for projects and nearby lands—where even a freedom of information request to government stakeholders may not uproot relevant information—can pose ethical issues for professional engineers. It is not clear in such cases if government is acting in the public interest or is to some extent ‘in cahoots’ with private businesses.

In 2008, for example, the Quayside Community Board (QCB) in New Westminster, B.C., initiated a com-

plaint over noise from a railyard in proximity to condominium towers with more than 2,000 homes. CTA referred the case to mediation, after which the parties entered a settlement agreement and filed a disposition statement. Two years later, QCB made another complaint to CTA, to the effect the railways using the yard—Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), Canadian National Company (CN), Canadian Pacific (CP) and Southern Railway of British Columbia (SRY)—had been “unable to or intentionally failed to comply” with the terms of the agreement.

BNSF, CN and CP sought relief from further intervention through the federal court of appeals, with a lawsuit claiming CTA had no jurisdiction to enforce the terms of the settlement agreement. In the end, QCB was precluded from relitigating the issues, but a 2013 CTA decision concluded the three federal railways were, at least in part, not complying with the settlement agreement’s provisions and further action to comply was warranted.

The settlement agreement, meanwhile, has been held in confidence by CTA. In this sense, a party responsible for noise has obstructed public disclosure based on its commercial interests.

That said, the agreement is on file with the federal court of appeals and, thus, available to the public through a disclosure process.

Given the proclivity by both public- and private-sector stakeholders to keep noise issues hidden from public view, professional engineers in acoustical consulting may find themselves in a position of ethical conflict when seeking to protect the public health and welfare. Should disclosure of noise impact be mandated when it can be classified as a nuisance? Must it be considered a de facto risk to public health for a compelling case for public disclosure to be made? These questions seem to be unresolved.

CCE Todd Busch operates Toronto-based Todd Busch Consulting. For more information, please contact him via email at todd@toddbuschconsulting.ca.

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illumination

Toward Uniformly Safe

PARKING LOT LIGHTING A new study could help engineers design improved systems.

By John D. Bullough, Jennifer A. Brons, Jeremy D. Snyder, Pierre Gallant and Robert Singlehurst Earlier LRC studies have investigated how the light level, spectral distribution (or colour) of the light source and the uniformity of illumination in a parking lot all affect people’s perceptions of safety. As might be expected, higher average light levels on a parking lot’s surface lead to perceptions of higher levels of safety.

Visitors to many different parking lots at night were asked whether they agreed the existing lighting reinforced their perceptions of personal security. As the light levels increased, so did their judgments about safety, but only up to an average illuminance of about 20 or 30 lux. Above this level,

there were no further improvements in perceived safety.

To investigate the role of the lighting spectrum, LRC brought visitors to several university campus parking lots with different light levels, illuminated by high-pressure sodium (HPS), metal halide (MH) and light-emitting diode (LED) sources. For these different sources, both the light levels and the light spectra affected safety ratings.

Perceptions of safety are based on sensations of brightness, which are greater for a white light source like LED or MH lamps than for HPS lamps, even when the measured light levels for all three options are the same.

Photos courtesy LRC

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O

utdoor lighting serves multiple purposes. It should help pedestrians and drivers see well enough to avoid hazards. It should also contribute to overall perceptions of personal safety and security at night.

For outdoor parking lots, results from a number of studies suggest a minimum illuminance of 2 lux on the lot’s surface is sufficient for ensuring objects like small tripping hazards are visible to pedestrians. That said, even if people can see possible hazards, they still may not feel safe when walking across a parking lot in the dark.

As part of a project financially supported by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and members of the Lighting Energy Alliance (LEA), including U.S.-based Efficiency Vermont, Energize Connecticut, National Grid, Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and Commonwealth Edison, the Lighting Research Center (LRC)— part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, N.Y., focusing on advancing the effective use of lighting throughout society—recently carried out a study of lighting-related factors that influence people’s perceptions of safety and security in parking lots. The results could help engineers and specifiers design new lighting systems that respond to these visual needs while minimizing energy consumption.

Figure 1: Views of the scale model parking lot with different spectra and uniformity conditions.

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illumination

Figure 2: Five parking lots evaluated in the field study. Top row: plan view. Bottom row: view from observer’s perspectives.

Figure 3. Agreement between perceived safety ratings predicted by the lab study and the average ratings found in the real-world field study.

Figure 4. Using the Parking Lot Lighting Safety Perception Calculator, lighting specifiers can compare predicted safety ratings under different conditions to help optimize energy use. Each curve refers to a different uniformity ratio. The red circles illustrate +0.5 safety ratings for the scenarios described in the text.

Arrows show potential energy savings for different LED retrofits achieving different safety ratings.

This is because a person’s visual system responds strongly to short-wavelength (i.e. ‘blue’) light for perceived brightness. LED and MH sources provide more of this ‘content’ than HPS lights do.

A simple, imprecise metric for characterizing the amount of short-wavelength energy from a light source is the correlated colour temperature (CCT). Higher CCT sources appear whiter or bluer than those with a low CCT. Another LRC study investigated uniformity of lighting.

For this project, a parking lot was illuminated by a specific lighting installation where the ratio between the maximum and minimum illuminances (i.e. ‘max:min’) anywhere on the lot was either 10:1, a uniformity ratio common under sources like HPS, or 3:1, which is considered quite uniform in appearance. The participants’ judgments of safety were substantially higher under the more uniform illumination, even when the average illuminance was the same.

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the ways in which these factors interact with and affect each other had not been well understood in the past. To address this knowledge gap, LRC carried out a laboratory study using a scale model of a parking lot (see Figure 1 on page 15) where the lighting could be changed from an average illuminance of 2.5 lux to 20 lux, from a CCT of 2,800 K to 5,800 K and from a max:min uniformity ratio of 2:1 to 15:1.

The results informed a mathematical model that can be used to predict the average rating of perceived safety along the following scale: • –2: very unsafe • –1: somewhat unsafe • 0: neither safe nor unsafe • +1: somewhat safe • +2: very safe

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The model has now been incorporated into a spreadsheet tool, dubbed the Parking Lot Lighting Safety Perception Calculator, which can be downloaded and used to compare installations that vary in light level, colour and uniformity.

Further, the predictions resulting from this lab study were put to the real-world test in a series of five parking lots (see Figure 2) at the Rensselaer Technology Park, a commercial campus owned by RPI. These lots were illuminated by different HPS, MH and LED systems, with different characteristics.

Observers visited the parking lots in random order at night and provided their ratings of perceived safety, using the same scale as above. As it turned out, there was strong agreement between the predicted and the actual average rating values for each of the parking lots (see Figure 3).

In other words, the mathematical model was shown to be validly predictive of how people will judge personal safety in parking lots at night.

Based on the results of these studies, there is an opportunity to reduce energy use substantially when selecting parking lot luminaires that can achieve uniform illumination, i.e. with a low max:min illuminance ratio.

Using the new spreadsheet-based calculator, specifiers can compare results for their alternative lighting system designs. By way of example (see Figure 4), a lot where HPS lamps offer a CCT of 2,161 K, a 12:1 max:min uniformity ratio and average illuminance of 15 lux would be predicted to achieve an average perceived safety rating of +0.5—not quite ‘somewhat safe.’ If an LED luminaire with a CCT of 3,000 K could be used in a retrofit of the same site to produce an average illuminance of 6.2 lux and a max:min uniformity ratio of 3:1, then the average perceived safety rating could be maintained, but the installation would use 72% less energy. And by increasing the average illuminance to 9 lux, the perceived safety rating could be increased to +1 (‘somewhat safe’), while still saving significant energy (60%).

Such examples help demonstrate how important uniformity is, especially, to reinforcing people’s perceptions of safety and security through the use of outdoor lighting.

Indeed, for engineers, uniformity provides powerful leverage in the design of both new and retrofit installations that (a) are economical for project owners and (b) a parking CCE lot’s occupants will judge as safe.

John D. Bullough is director of transportation and safety lighting programs and a course instructor at RPI’s LRC. Jennifer A. Brons is director of design demonstrations, Demonstration and Evaluation of Lighting Technologies and Applications (DELTA) program manager and an adjunct assistant professor for LRC. Jeremy D. Snyder is former director of energy programs for LRC. Pierre Gallant is a standards engineer for NRCan. Robert Singlehurst is a team leader for NRCan. For more information, including a link to the Parking Lot Lighting Safety Perception Calculator, visit lrc.rpi.edu and search for ‘parking.’

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legal

WHY WORKPLACE DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION MATTER Policies need to be followed by actions.

By Gita Anand

D

iversity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords; they are an important business strategy for engineering firms.

Confronted with the reality that huge numbers of baby boomers are retiring, the construction industry overall is experiencing widening gaps in its workforce. BuildForce Canada estimates more than 20% of the current labour market will retire from job sites in the next decade. To replace them, the organization suggests employers should concentrate recruitment efforts on historically underrepresented groups, including women and Indigenous and new Canadians.

Although women comprise more than half of Canada’s population, for example, they are significantly underrepresented in the engineering profession and in on-site construction industry occupations, including skilled trades. One of the keys to recruiting them and other underrepresented groups to the industry—and retaining them—is a strategy of diversity and inclusion.

This notion was addressed in Engineers Canada’s 2019-2021 Strategic Plan, which made the recruitment, retention and professional development of women in the engineering profession a priority. Through its ‘30 by 30’ initiative, which was launched 18

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in 2015, the industry organization has a goal of raising the proportion of newly licensed engineers who are women to 30% by the year 2030.

Diversity vs. inclusion To better understand diversity and inclusion, consider this analogy: a jigsaw puzzle comprises hundreds of unique, multi-coloured pieces in different shapes and even sizes.

‘Diversity’ could describe the variety of qualities and characteristics of each individual piece, as it does to represent the uniqueness of each individual person. ‘Inclusion,’ on the other hand, relates to the completed puzzle, whereby the individual pieces fit together for the benefit of the collective. It is about creating a work culture that respects, values and accepts differences.

So, together, diversity and inclusion strive to embrace the uniqueness of each individual within an environment that values and respects them for their talents, skills and abilities to the benefit of the group—i.e. a celebration of a piece within a puzzle.

Value for business There is no doubt diversity is good for business.

Workplace diversity has proven its value in sparking innovations, foster-

ing creativity and solving problems.

Cultural and gender differences can help introduce new ideas and fresh perspectives. In fact, research has shown teams with gender diversity are smarter and more innovative than those without.

Innovation leads to better results, which in turn drive better company performance. In the construction industry, especially, better-performing teams can achieve better project outcomes. Positive impacts of diversity can be seen in terms of productivity, quality, revenue, market share, absenteeism rates, employee retention and safety.

The gender gap Across all industries, construction is one of the largest areas of employment in Canada in both the public and the private sectors, accounting for almost 1.5 million jobs.

Yet, despite this significant scale, it is a male-dominated industry. In fact, with only 12% female employment, statistics show construction employs the lowest female-to-male ratio across all industries—even lower than other traditionally male-dominated industries like mining, oil and gas.

Moreover, female employment in construction has not increased over the years. In fact, there is a decreas-

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Policies and actions Organizations and institutions have studied issues relating to recruitment and retention of (a) women in industries where the workplace is maledominated and (b) individuals with diverse backgrounds in those that are homogenous.

Over the past decade, many of them have also introduced policies reflecting new commitments to increase diversity and improve equality in the workplace. Some have followed up with training sessions explaining what these policies mean.

While these are positive first steps, however, value will only result by moving beyond lip service. For that matter, diversity is useless as a business strategy without also figuring out how to make a workplace more inclusive.

Hiring more women may result in gender diversity, for example, but without also creating an environment where those women feel valued and respected and have access to the same opportunities as their male counterparts, successful recruitment efforts will not resolve a gender imbalance.

Only when an inclusive work environment is created will many of the positive benefits of diversity be enjoyed, both by individuals and the organization, including reduced turnover, improved collaboration and loyalty, stronger team engagement, reduction of conflict and increased employee satisfaction.

That is why organizations like Engineers Canada focus not only on recruitment, but also on retention, of women in the workplace. Retention depends on inclusion. And compared to diversity, inclusion—which may require authentic change in business culture—is the hard part.

People feel a fundamental need to belong within an organization, yet inclusion has proved difficult for most businesses to achieve. Research shows certain dynamics work against it in many cases, including the inclination for people to gravitate toward other people like themselves, the existence of subtle but exclusionary biases, the attempt of those different from the majority to conform as a coping strategy and a resistance to change among those within the majority group.

on their own biases and consider what they could do to make their work environment more inclusive.

Individuals at every level of an organization can make a significant impact in the creation of an inclusive environment. And indeed, they must all step up. Women and members of minority groups should not be expected to lead the charge. All business leaders must spearhead efforts through promoting diversity, training, setting targets and creating and implementing policies that improve the representation of diverse individuals in leadership positions.

It is key for those in leadership roles to ensure diversity and inclusion become firmly entrenched in the organization’s systems and processes.

Creating a culture of inclusion is not unlike creating a culture of safety, which has already become embedded in most workplace structures.

To get there, leaders will need to place both diversity and inclusion at the top of their list of priorities, talk about their importance, speak about the issues, seek out and encourage differences, notice when they are present, question when they are absent, actively drive them forward and make everyone accountable.

Methods of improvement There is a wealth of literature suggesting how organizations can create and enhance workplace inclusivity, including training employees about bias, equity, respect and other elements of teamwork and inviting them to reflect

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ing trend.

In 2017, a gender study helped show that where a workforce is maledominated, the workplace culture is male-dominated, too. It is for this reason the status quo of a gender imbalance in the workplace can become a barrier to the recruitment of women.

Research has shown diverse teams are more innovative.

Mitigating legal risk Finally, there are also legal reasons to focus on diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Provincial and federal human rights laws, which apply to employers, prohibit discrimination in employment on a wide number of grounds, including age, disability, gender, race, religion and sexual orientation. This prohibition extends to discrimination in the hiring and retaining of employees. A diverse and inclusive workplace reduces the risk of costly legal claims for breaches of these laws.

CCE Gita Anand is an associate counsel in the Toronto office of Miller Thomson LLP, with a practice in labour relations, employment law and litigation. For more information, please contact her via email at ganand@millerthomson.com.

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conversation

The Benefits of CLT in

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING Interest in using wood for large-scale projects continues to grow.

D

avid Moses, P.Eng., principal with Toronto-based Moses Structural Engineers, has worked on many projects involving cross-laminated timber (CLT). He recently contributed to the 2019 edition of FPInnovations’ Canadian CLT Handbook, which reflects changes in Canadian codes and standards over the past decade that support broader use of CLT in new buildings. Here, he discusses the material’s appeal.

What has motivated you to use CLT in your projects?

I was introduced to woodworking by a very dedicated teacher in high school.

He emphasized the craft, understanding the material qualities of wood and working with traditional hand tools from around the world. The grain, the feel and the adaptability appealed to me.

I did not realize you could design large structures in wood until I com20

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How did others perceive and react to this change?

At first, designing and building with wood was a niche. Finding the right clients who shared our passion for these structures was not easy—and it varied geographically.

But now, attitudes are changing and more people are coming to understand the value of using wood in their buildings, be it for esthetics, biophilic response or the environment.

A great example is a CLT project manufactured by Canadian supplier

Structurlam Mass Timber for Hutton Offices, where the exposed wood structural elements create a warm and inviting atmosphere for staff and visitors.

What obstacles have you encountered when proposing wood in projects for your clients?

We get questions about the supply chain, scheduling, cost and performance. New construction products such as CLT take time to penetrate the market. I have seen this repeatedly over my career. A lot of people want to be the second or third to try something new.

Tell us about the new handbook’s ‘design example’ chapter, of which you are the lead author?

I was fortunate to be involved in the

Photo courtesy Hutton Offices

Photo courtesy Moses Structural Engineers

pleted my degree in engineering. At that same time, the technology was changing quickly for connections, fabrication and modelling. CLT was a great next step, a new product that was very strong, could be precision-cut and could be installed rapidly.

Canadian supplier Structurlam Mass Timber recently manufactured a CLT project for Hutton Offices.

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first CLT building in Canada while I was at Equilibrium Consulting: the Austria House for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Whistler, B.C. In addition to the first use of prefabricated solid CLT panels, it was also the first registered Passive House (PH) project in Canada.

That project was prior to there being any standards or building code

CLT design, which we presented in major cities across Canada.

Once the first edition of the handbook was published, it gave practitioners an opportunity to ‘dive deep’ into their understanding of CLT design. The natural next step was to provide an example of a tall wood building—specifically, an eight-storey platform-framed mass timber building

"New construction products take time to penetrate the market. I have seen this repeatedly over my career." approvals. We had to do our homework and study all of the research literature available to us from other countries. From that experience, I went on to work with FPInnovations and the Canadian Wood Council (CWC) to develop a short course on

in Ottawa—to make it more accessible to more designers.

The handbook has every topic covered and is an essential resource for anyone thinking of building with CLT for their first time. They will definitely refer back to it for the

second, third or fourth buildings, whether they are in North America or other parts of the world.

Do you believe the trend of using wood in major construction projects will continue in Canada?

There is much more interest in wood for large-scale projects than in the past. This interest will continue as the supply chain increases product availability and as governments look for opportunities to incentivize atmospheric carbon reductions and promote their local forestry industries.

The handbook allows designers to answer many of the questions asked by building owners. With more knowledge, we expect less perceived risk and more market acceptance. CCE An earlier version of this interview originally appeared on FPInnovations’ blog (blog.fpinnovations.ca).

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products

PUBLIC SAFETY

DESIGN SOFTWARE

A Toronto-based joint venture (JV) between Internet of Things’ AI Labs subsidiary and Commersive Solutions has introduced ThermalPass, a fever detection system designed to help reduce transmission of contagions, to the public-safety market.

The patent-pending system screens for higher-than-normal body temperatures in potential carriers of the novel coronavirus and other fever-bearing contagions. It is intended for installation at the entranceways to high-traffic public locations, both indoors and outdoors.

While fever detection typically requires an individual to be stationary for accurate readings, ThermalPass can reportedly screen people as they pass through it, without any effect on their pace of movement. Its metal frame integrates 19 infrared (IR) medical-grade thermal sensors, which trigger audio and visual signals whenever the specified temperature is exceeded.

“We envision the implementation of ThermalPass across various public settings, including entrances to bus and train stations, schools, retailers, office buildings and sports venues,” explains Michael Lende, president and CEO of Internet of Things. “We also anticipate its widespread installation as necessary in the containment of all fever-bearing contagions in a post-COVID-19 world.”

Prototypes entered pre-commercial testing in May, with a final product launch subject to CSA approval for Canada and UL certification for the U.S. thermalpass.com

Fast + Epp Structural Engineers has introduced its Timber Bay Design Tool for architects, designers, developers and builders who may be interested in exploring mass timber for their next project.

Developed by the firm’s in-house parametric design team, the tool provides member sizes, volume outputs and three-dimensional (3-D) visualizations of mass timber grids.

Calculations are performed in a background script to size up the deck, purlins, girders and columns before they are displayed in 3-D. A bay data output table displays all of the results, along with structural depth and material takeoffs. fastepp.com IMAGINiT Technologies has signed on as a reseller of Epic Games’ Twinmotion real-time immersive visualization tool for the North American architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) market.

The three-dimensional (3-D) technology allows professionals to share designs created using a variety of popular tools, including most building information modelling (BIM) and computeraided design (CAD) packages. They can communicate design intention throughout a project and reduce rendering time with a user interface (UI) that does not require visualization expertise. Designs can be enhanced with motion-captured animated human characters and animals—even high-resolution plants that move with the wind. imaginit.com/twinmotion

professional directory

Experts in Measurement, Analysis & Control

905-826-4546 answers@hgcengineering.com www.hgcengineering.com

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For information on placing an advertisement in the Canadian Consulting Engineer Professional Directory, contact Maureen Levy, Senior Publisher 416-510-5111 email: mlevy@ccemag.com

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