Research Facilities
The Geotechnical Centre is located in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering in the Markin/CNRL Natural Resources Engineering Facility (NREF). With over 300,000 square feet of floor area, NREF houses 78 research laboratories, 26 specialized instructional laboratories, and many high-tech lecture rooms.
Our commitment to research excellence has led to the establishment of several specialized facilities, which are well tailored for the innovative research programs led by the Geotechnical Centre. In addition to our research groups, the following are our unique research laboratories:
The CFI/I2P2-funded Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering Cold Regions Research Facility
ideal for conducting research related to cold regions engineering
consists of six cold rooms that can provide temperature environments down to -40°C
researchers can reproduce extreme conditions and research the effect of cold weather on infrastructure
The CFI/AET-funded Applied Environmental Geochemistry Research Facility
is equipped with state-of-the-art technologies to conduct sample testing for the prevention, assessment and remediation of soil, groundwater and surface water contamination
researchers can quantify organic compounds, pesticides, ions and trace metals in soil and groundwater in the parts per billion and for certain compounds in the parts per trillion
is dedicated to cross-disciplinary oil sands tailings research
enables fundamental exploration of new concepts which then can be tested at the pilot scale ultimately providing the parameters to assist with the design of a field scale pilot and/or field demonstration
unique, integrated, multidisciplinary university research laboratory environments that enable breakthroughs in our understanding of constitutive material behaviour and our ability to simulate their complex reservoir geomechanical behavior during recovery of unconventional hydrocarbons at multiple scales
facilitates reservoir geomechanical research in reservoir simulation, reservoir surveillance design and implementation, and field services including core preservation and transport, instrumentation design, and experimental programs
includes GeoREF, GeoCERF, GeoPrint and GeoRMT
is equipped with two abrasion testing apparatuses to evaluate the abrasion resistance and toughness of aggregate materials used for railways and pavement
researchers also use a variety of advanced field sensors and monitoring technologies, including 3D ground penetrating radar, LiDAR (produces 3D models from scanned images), a geographic information system facility to manage field data and an instrumented rail car to measure track deflection
The Mine Waste Laboratory
offers an extensive facility for classical geotechnical testing in mine waste materials as well as advanced capacity in unsaturated soil mechanics and slurry characterization
Our unique equipment include a large slurry consolidometer and Eddy Covariance devices courtesy of a CFI/EDTT award.