RESEARCH
Queen’s
Coastal Lab
Nadira Mathura (left) is visiting Queen’s to do her PhD research at the Coastal lab. She is from from the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. Neville Berard (right) is doing her Master’s in Civil Engineering at Queen’s.
A
low, nondescript building on Queen’s west campus houses a unique laboratory for civil engineering students. Walk inside and you’ll see a large basin of water and sand surrounded by complex equipment designed to simulate wave action and water movement. Several long flumes line the perimeter of the basin, which is used to study the motion of waves, water and sand by mimicking the natural conditions of oceans, lakes and rivers under controlled, scaled-down conditions. Another large structure, resembling an escalator lined with glass, tests the movement of soil during a landslide. This is the Coastal Lab, the only hydraulic lab of its size in all Canadian universities. A fixture on the
26 THE COMPLETE ENGINEER
“
Queen’s campus since the 1960s, it has offered generations of civil engineering
We have to understand coastal
processes in our ever-changing
environment. The risk to human
population increases as we see more natural disasters like hurricanes, as the climate changes and as sea ice melts. This is especially critical in
Canada, a country surrounded by three oceans and Great Lakes. —Ryan Mulligan
students hands-on, practical insight into the complex world of coastal research. Today, five scholars conduct specialized research at the Coastal Lab with the help of graduate students. Dr. Ryan Mulligan, Sc’97, is a coastal engineer and oceanographer with an interest in surface waves and the physical forces that cause coastal changes and the ways in which coastal systems respond to those changes. Dr. Andy Take’s specialty is geotechnical engineering, which involves the study of embankment and dam erosion, landslides, and ground movement. Dr. Ana da Silva, MSc’91, PhD’95, studies the mechanics of turbulent river flows, sediment transport and river morphodynamics. Dr. Yves Filion is an expert