Grant: Engage Grants Program

The high quality of modern day life depends strongly on the continuous improvement of the technology surrounding us and preserving our nature. Therefore, there is a need to address impacts of engineering equipment buried in the ground (high-voltage power cables, high-level radioactive wastes stored below the ground, utilizing tar sand deposits, piping of underground district heating systems, and ground heat exchangers) on its surface. In addition, a steadily increasing expansion of engineering infrastructures in the Canadian Arctic and occurring global warming are causing irrevocable changes of the frozen ground thus leading landslides and damages to engineering structures. These issues are very complex and therefore, thorough understanding of the ground ability to conduct heat is a critical priority. Due to a large variety of grounds and conditions, this property must be measured. Commercially available probes are expensive, prone to break, and require the use of supplementary laboratory devices. Therefore, their use is limited to laboratory space only. Also, there is a lack of a standardized portable probe that could be applied to laboratory and field experiments. For that reason, there is a need for a probe prototype that could have built-in a miniature power supply and data acquisition system for this portable device. Consequently, this short-term research project is focusing on development of a portable thermal conductivity probe for instant measurements in soil natural environment. Project details include software development (user friendly communication with the probe), laboratory/field testing, and development of a smart probe for field and arctic applications. The outcome of this research will establish needed foundations for the development of preventive solutions for maintenance and design of engineering structures in the Canadian Arctic.