A computational clothing design tool is used to examine the effects of different clothing design features upon performance. Computational predictions of total heat and mass transfer coefficients of the clothing design tool showed good agreement with experimental measurements obtained using a sweating thermal manikin for four different clothing systems, as well as for the unclothed bare manikin. The specific clothing design features examined in this work are the size and placement of air-permeable fabric vents in a protective suit composed primarily of a fabric-laminated polymer film layer. The air-permeable vents were shown to provide additional ventilation and to significantly decrease both the total thermal insulation and the water vapor resistance of the protective suit.

This paper presents an innovative technique to repair head gate and spillway gate wheel tracks at a fraction of the cost and time usually required, without compromising quality. A small portable robot is used to rectify the wheel track to within very tight tolerances. This is accomplished by coupling the small and flexible robot to an accurate measurement system to scan the wheel track surface topography. Robotic grinding is then performed, using a controlled metal removal rate strategy to iterate toward the desired target profile. If required, a stainless steel plate can be welded over the existing track with an innovative method involving post-heat treatment and hammer peening. This particular welding procedure was developed due to the high carbon content of the steel of the existing track. The technique was successfully tested on a few occasions on gates owned by Rio Tinto Alcan and Hydro Quebec.

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