TECHNICAL LEARNING
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2023
Forest Roads and Landslide Risk - Perspectives from Sea to Sky
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
This session will present an historical perspective of forest road development, with examples of road-related landslide events and a review of lessons learned from those incidents. The types of resource roads will be defined, and the legacy of non-status roads will be discussed. Several operational scenarios are presented and landslide risk management measures will be described.
Speakers
Pierre Friele, P.Geo., P.L.Eng.
Pierre Friele is a professional geoscientist whose training an experience is in Quaternary Geology and Landslide Risk Assessment. Practicing Engineering Geology as a sole proprietor, he undertakes projects involving flood or landslide risk for a range of clients ranging from the individual to the Provincial Government. In the resource sector, he has conducted operational-level terrain stability assessments (TSAs) since 1993. This involves the assessment and analysis of the hazard and risk presented by proposed and existing resource infrastructure; the development of prescriptions for both the construction and deactivation of resource roads, and the forensic analysis of road-related landslides and their consequences. He has recently co-authored the update of the Professional Practice Guideline Landslide Assessment in BC.
Optimizing Safety Critical Tasks Using a Human Factors Approach
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM
Since 2018, WorkSafeBC’s Process Safety Team has engaged with several industries on a modified process safety management approach to manage catastrophic risks. We have found that many industries still rely on workers to correctly execute some of the most critical controls to prevent and/or mitigate major loss events. This session will describe a framework to systematically analyze a safety critical task in order to evaluate the effects of performance variability, thereby improving control reliability, and improving workplace safety.
Speakers
Jennifer Fung, P.Eng.
Jennifer Fung graduated with a BASc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo. She has worked for over 16 years in various process industries and the last 6 years in the OHS Prevention Services Division of WorkSafeBC as a Senior Engineer. Jennifer is a member of WorkSafeBC’s Process Safety Team. Since 2018, the team has engaged with high hazard industries across BC using critical control methodology to help employers prevent/mitigate catastrophic process incidents in the workplace. Jennifer has collaborated with WorkSafeBC’s Human Factors Specialist, Jenny Colman, on a technique to strengthen administrative controls within the critical control framework.
Jenny Colman
Jenny is an ergonomist / human factors specialist who specializes in system thinking. Her expertise includes a decade of conducting and teaching incident investigations to analyze why an event occurred for the benefit of organizational and industry-wide learning. She is currently working with the Risk Analysis Unit at WorkSafeBC. In her current role she assists the process safety team in liaising with some of BC’s high-risk industries. She demonstrates a safety critical task analysis methodology to ensure risk controls are compatible with human and organizational performance elements.
Fire and the Built Environment - Risk Management Challenges
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Safety within the modern building environment is an ever-evolving challenge. The drive for ever more sustainable design places challenges on the contemporary concept of fire safety. Manifestations include increasing demand for mass timber construction and more thermally efficient building envelopes. These objectives are often at odds with fire safety that is typically a reactive discipline that is reliant upon legacy research and large-scale fire incident analysis. This presentation acknowledges the challenges of delivering fire safety design within integrated design solutions. Managing risk, technical competence of practitioners, and regulatory conformance are all aspects explored to support a sustainable future.
Speakers
Kieran Ager, P.Eng.
Kieran is an internationally trained and experienced Fire Engineer and Code Consultant with 15+ years within the fire industry. He has the unique distinction of attaining both undergraduate and post graduate degrees in fire engineering and fire and explosion engineering. He has led the development of numerous iconic and notable projects in Canada, United Kingdom, Myanmar, United Arab Emirates, and the United States. Kieran’s focus on technical excellence, research, and innovative integrated design solutions have been recognised through membership on multiple performance-based design committees, publications, and presentations. Kieran specializes in developing solutions for emerging challenges within the built environment, such as high-rise construction and integration, the promotion and use of sustainable materials (mass timber) and embracing and advancing emerging technologies that influence industry and society.
Challenges and Opportunities for Rail Industry in Changing Climate
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
This presentation examines the impact of global warming on the rail sector and proposes solutions. It lists the key challenges due to climate change, such as extreme weather conditions causing rail infrastructure damage and costly delays. Opportunities for reducing carbon footprint and mitigate the impacts of climate change such as switching to electric/hydrogen fuel cell locomotives. Few different sustainable solutions include investing in renewables and energy-efficient technologies, predictive maintenance, redirecting carbon pricing revenue, and adapting new low-emissions rail technologies. Finally, it concludes by summarizing key takeaways and highlighting the importance of addressing climate change in the rail industry.
Speakers
Priya Dunna, P.Eng.
Priya Dunna, P.Eng., PMP, with 15 years of international experience in Systems and Software Engineering, and Project Management in Rail and Transit Industry. She has significant technical expertise in Communication Based Train Control systems, Automatic Train Protection, Automatic Train Control Systems, Positive Train Control systems and Conventional Rail Signaling systems.
Atul Manmohan, P.Eng. (Ontario)
Atul Manmohan, P.Eng., PMP, with 7 years of international experience in Electrical Engineering, and Project Management in Rail and Transit Industry. Areas of expertise include Traction Power System (TPS) and Overhead Catenary System (OCS) Designing, Simulation, On-site Testing, Commissioning, and Operation.
Impacts on Highway 8 Due to the November 2021 Atmospheric River Event
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Highway 8 between Spences Bridge and Lower Nicola in British Columbia suffered significant damage during the atmospheric river event of November 2021. Multiple sections of the highway were completely washed away and destroyed due to flooding and lateral migration of the Nicola River. Small farming and Indigenous communities along the highway were cut off. The damage included a total of 6 km of highway that was completely eroded away, with a further 1 km of highway and 3 highway bridges compromised. This presentation provides a summary of the impacts that the flood had on the highway, including the influence of hydraulic constrictions and erodible soils, as well as the significant landslide hazards created by the flood, how they were addressed by the flood response team during the emergency access phase (Phase 1) and provides an overview of the response works.
Speakers
Michael J. Laws, P.Eng.
Michael J. Laws is a Principal Geotechnical and Dam Safety Engineer with Ecora based in Kelowna, BC with over with over 23 years of consulting experience. He is a graduate from the University of Auckland with a B.E. (Civil) and B.Sc. (Geology) with a primary focus on transportation and dam infrastructure. Through his career he has been involved in the investigation, geotechnical analysis and design of major infrastructure projects throughout western Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, with the last 15 years based in Western Canada. In addition, he has considerable experience undertaking emergency field assessments of failed road embankments and slopes, rock fall, debris flows, slope erosion, bridge scour, failed hydraulic structures, and providing inputs for temporary traffic management and monitoring plans to ensure public safety during emergency response. He was the Geotechnical Lead during for the Highway 8 flood response due to the atmospheric river event of November 2021.
Applying Reverse Engineering to a Houdini Trick - Argon Cold Recovery
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
By reverse thinking the approach of one of the most famous tricks from Houdini, how to hide an elephant in front a big audience, the Team was able to identify a considerable waste of cold energy, generated from one of the building processes. By applying basic HVAC concepts and design tools, the proposal is to use some of this cold energy to reduce the air intake temperature of the AHU so it can have a reduced energy consumption.
Francis Ribeiro, P.Eng.
With more than 11 years as a Professional Mechanical Engineer, Francis worked with a diverse portfolio of business, always with an open to innovation approach. With the mantra "understand the energy flow through the systems", Francis has been able to help to address a wide variety of problems and questions in the most diverse industries and business, from the Facilities Maintenance and Operations to the exploration of Offshore Oilfields.