John Gales

York University · Civil Engineering

This work aims to add to the current database of human movement data, specifically, 3-stair descent speeds from controlled trials of typically aging older adults (n=212, aged 60-99) with and without mobility impairments. Additionally, to explore the impacts of model input parameters, stair and walking speeds obtained from controlled trials are used...

There is a need to revisit movement dataset(s) currently used as egress determinants to assess whether they are truly representative of the current diverse occupant base. This is particularly important with our aging population as these sets contain very limited amounts of recent, age-specific data for older adults. This study provides data on walk...

Wildfire impacts are increasing due to the multiplicative effect of several factors, including climate change, increased vulnerability in the wildland-urban interface, and impacts of management decisions. This has also led to an increase in evacuations due to the number of wildfires and people affected. This study collected information on behaviour...

Pedestrian microsimulation software is used to model and evaluate the circulation of pedestrians in transportation terminals. It can be used to determine potential travel times and visualize congestion during the design phase so that change and optimization can be made. Model parameters can also easily be changed to simulate a variety of scenarios,...

In Canada, the development of fire codes and standards is based upon governmental resources aiming to advance requirements deemed insufficient or potentially non-reflective of current design trends. This has led to recent advancements of fire-safe engineered timber and urban interface protection from wildfires. It has at this time minimalized atten...

The present standards for finding the fire ratings of reinforced concrete (RC) columns are restricted to pristine elements, as the age or corrosion-related deteriorations are yet to be addressed. An experimental investigation was conducted to examine the impact of corrosion on the fire performance of reinforced concrete columns. This investigation...

With architectural styles changing and the knowledge of fire behaviour constantly evolving, it is important to continue advancing the field of fire safety engineering to ensure that the existing and expanding infrastructure is safe and resilient. Within the National Building Code of Canada and subsequent provincial and material design standards, th...

This chapter discusses strategies and best practices to improve the evacuation performance of stadia. Considerations for accessibility and movement of different demographics are reviewed, including the impact of future population and demographic trends. The evolution of methodologies for demographics-based analysis of pedestrian movement and behavi...

In this chapter, the observational portion of the study is discussed. Three data collection trials were performed on three days (preliminary rounds, quarterfinals, and finals) in 2018. Video footage and stationary photos were taken and reviewed with each mobility case timestamped and logged in a data sheet. Movement profiles of mobility related dis...

A survey was conducted in which mobility-related disabled and non-disabled people, authority figures and employees, and officers were approached at random on stadia grounds during a professional tennis tournament. The first question asked the interviewee to list accessibility features in the considered stadium and its grounds, and the second questi...

There is a significant population of mobility related disabled persons in Canada. Recent studies have shown accessibility and mobility are a large concern in stadia egress which requires more research and practitioner attention. In 2019, Canada enacted the Accessible Canada Act to address this issue by focusing on identifying, removing, and prevent...

In this chapter, techniques and considerations for reducing uncertainty in the modelling the movement of stadium attendees are discussed. The current generation of commercially available pedestrian modelling revolves around agent-based social force models (the Artificial Intelligence of the movement model so to be). The creation, programming, and m...

In Canada, the use of mass timber as a structural material has become more commonplace. A useful tool in the design of structures is structural analysis/finite element modelling programs. These tools are structured around assumptions based on extensive research on the behaviour of structural materials. However, at this time timber is not well under...

This paper assesses the capability of using a new data-driven approach to predict the bond strength between steel rebar and concrete subjected to high temperatures. The analysis has been conducted using a novel evolutionary polynomial regression analysis (EPR-MOGA) that employs soft computing techniques, and new correlations have been proposed. The...

Trends in engineering education have shifted over time, with teaching methods adapting to facilitate student learning [1], and the importance of equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) coming to the forefront [2]. It is important to understand the trends in engineering education to assess where we are coming from and where things currently stand in...

Heritage timber buildings are found worldwide and their irreplaceable nature makes them of high value. A common occurrence on heritage timber members is radial shrinkage cracks resulting from changing moisture contents over time. There is little information available that can be used to assess the fire performance of heritage timber members (which...

Structural cables are used to design critical bridge structures. These are not typically redundant; a loss or compromise of a few cables can lead to the progressive collapse. Previous experimental research has shown that the degradation of material properties and thermal expansion of structural cables is more onerous than the standard carbon prestr...

An unplanned and unannounced evacuation event (Scenario 1) at a Cultural Centre observed 73% of its approximate 1730 occupants (41% capacity) evacuate using the main entranceway, despite, code-compliant exit signs, onsite personnel providing instructions and physical barriers meant to prevent the overuse of the main entrance. The remaining populati...

There are several architectural elements unique to historic and heritage designated buildings that have an impact on egress, as presented in Chap. 1. Additionally, when heritage buildings are renovated to meet modern code requirements for egress, it is in the best interest of the building to minimize interventions as much as possible to preserve he...

Three evacuation scenarios of a Cultural Centre in Canada were documented and considered. The first scenario (Scenario 1) represents an unplanned evacuation during the day where an emergency pull station was activated by an occupant. The next scenarios (Scenarios 2 and 3) were annual evacuation drills held over the course of two years. These annual...

Chapters 2 through 4 illustrated three different and real evacuation scenarios of a cultural centre. These were analyzed for behavioural and movement data. The resulting analysis being useful to inform building design and policies of existing and new cultural centres, and further address critical research needs in human behaviour and fire.

Fundamentals of human behaviour in fire are discussed to provide a basis for understanding the research study and results presented in this book. The reader is further directed to numerous primary sources and education materials which detail this subject.

Globally, 1 billion people live in informal settlements, which are typically highly susceptible to fire. Small fires can quickly evolve into large conflagrations causing significant losses of life and property, injuries, and subsequent exacerbation of residents’ existing vulnerabilities. Informal settlement fires are a complex socio-technical pheno...

The purpose of this research was to identify and understand the factors affecting graduate students of different genders in engineering.

In Part 1, a novel data collection exercise of a Canadian Stadium was conducted. Demographic distribution, pedestrian speed, exit and route choice, and areas of congestion were quantified using high resolution cameras. Herein, a numerical model space is built to simulate these observations in conventional software while exemplifying proper techniqu...

Large crowd sizes at stadia events require an in-depth consideration of human behaviour, since the reliability of egress models in design depends on the confidence of the input data. However, there is little contemporary public data surrounding crowd behaviour, and its implementation into pedestrian movement models, particularly focused on Canadian...

Transportation is constantly updating with new technologies and adapting for its users as they choose to use the new options that are being made. This study contributes knowledge on adaptation to connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) in planning and operating future airport landside facilities. It consists of five parts. The first part describes...

The purpose of this study is to better understand the effect of undergraduate engineering student engagement with an experiential learning opportunity on academic success in a virtual format. Students in a second year Civil Engineering Materials course that was virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic were given the option to shift a portion of the fin...

This study aims to understand student engagement with synchronous and asynchronous elements across the lecture and laboratory sections of a Civil Engineering undergraduate course. This course provided a unique chance to observe and compare synchronous andasynchronous elements as they run concurrently and in parallel. Behavioural engagement, a measu...

The purpose of this study is to better understand the effect of undergraduate engineering student engagement with an experiential learning opportunity on academic success in a virtual format. Students in a second year Civil Engineering Materials course that was virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic were given the option to shift a portion of the fin...

This study aims to understand student engagement with synchronous and asynchronous elements across the lecture and laboratory sections of a Civil Engineering undergraduate course. This course provided a unique chance to observe and compare synchronous and asynchronous elements as they run concurrently and in parallel. Behavioural engagement, a meas...

Prestressing steel is commonplace in critical infrastructure like bridges. These structures are of significant societal and economic importance, and any disruptions affecting their service due to fire or other extreme events, can compromise life safety, structural integrity, and the economic cycle. The prestressing steel used in bridge infrastructu...

There are no contemporary code requirements for the fire resistance of bridge infrastructure, nor is there guidance available for practitioners who wish to design cable-supported structures for the fire. This research seeks to develop an understanding of the thermal response of steel stay-cables under exposure to a pool fire. Multiple varieties of...

Engineered timber is being used to create increasingly taller structures, with building codes adapting to reflect this drive. While these structures continue to become more common, there has been little investigation into the possibility of repairing fire-damaged timber structural members, leaving practitioners with little guidance in the event of...

Egress modelling can be used in stadia design. This modelling describes the movement of pedestrians and crowd flow considering wayfinding and decision making in evacuation and circulation. The accuracy of the modelling is highly dependent on project-specific input data that accurately represents the movement of population with associated human fact...

Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) communities are situated at the interface between human development and wildland fuel. In addition to their proximity to susceptible regions, routes of evacuation in WUIs are often limited, posing great risks to these communities in the event of a natural disaster. To begin the research herein, a Canadian WUI communit...

p>Recent trends towards performance-based fire designs for complex and critical structures have posed questions about the fire resilience of bridge infrastructure. There are little-to-no code requirements for bridge fire resistance and practitioner guidance on the subject is limited. Research on the fire performance of cable-supported bridge struct...

p>The performance-based fire protection design of cable-supported bridge structures is becoming more common as stakeholders desire more resilient infrastructure. Currently, there exist significant knowledge gaps regarding the fire performance of structural steel cables. The study herein examines the thermal response of several varieties of unloaded...

Timber use is becoming more appealing in the recent years especially ‘exposed timber’; however, the information available on the performance of engineered timber after fire is limited. This paper explores the performance of timber elements exposed to well defined thermal boundary conditions and examines the extent of adhesive degradation after heat...

This review aims to provide additional context to the historical narrative of the development of the standard temperature–time heating curve used for the determination of the fire resistance of structural elements. While historical narratives of the development of the standard temperature–time heating curve exist, there are portions of the timeline...

The fast-paced advancement of ground transportation methods such as connected and autonomous vehicles makes it difficult for professionals to design infrastructure, which includes airports. Due to the amplified variability in both transportation modes and demographics, planners must consider the best alternative, which will service all of their use...

Cultural heritage buildings are often recognized for holding significant heritage value; however, too often these structures are lost to fire. Timber is a building material commonly found in cultural heritage buildings, and for centuries encapsulations have been used in an attempt to improve the fire performance of timber. This research examines th...

Practitioners are continuing to develop egress modelling software for the design of the built environment. These models require data about human behaviour and factors for calibration, validation and verification. This study aims to address the specific data and knowledge gap: emergency egress of the elderly. Such data are difficult to collect given...

Timber buildings are becoming increasingly sought after for their aesthetic and environmental appeal. Commonly, timber elements are encapsulated using multi‐layered fire rated gypsum board in order to prevent the timber from contributing additional fuel load to the fire or to be approved by authorities. In recent studies performed in the last 5 yea...

For furnace testing of fire‐resistant floor and roof assemblies in the United States, the ASTM E 119 standard (and similarly the UL 263 standard) permits two classifications for boundary conditions: “restrained” and “unrestrained.” When incorporating tested assemblies into an actual structural system, the designer, oftentimes a fire protection or s...

Cultural heritage buildings are important reminders of our history, and timber is one of the materials commonly found within these structures. While cultural heritage buildings often hold significant aesthetic, historic, or cultural value, they are also frequently vulnerable to fire. In order to improve the fire performance of these buildings, the...

Modern architecture is striving for large open spaces, which has resulted in the development of design methodologies such as the Improved Travelling Fires Methodology (iTFM). This methodology is only applicable in large open spaces where flashover may not occur. This paper studies the effect of various design fires, including traditional uniform fi...

A previous study by the authors that was conducted on students in accredited undergraduate engineering programs showed significant differences between men’s and women’s experiences in their programs. That previous first-stage study highlighted that the causes of Canada’s low retention of women in the field may be at least partially attributable to...

The demand for large and tall timber buildings is increasing across Canada. The recently constructed Brock Commons building in Vancouver and the upcoming Arbour building in Toronto are two such examples. These buildings are challenging for practitioners to design, and presently only a limited number of engineering institutions across Canada offer a...

The demand for large and tall timber buildings is increasing across Canada. The recently constructed Brock Commons building in Vancouver and the upcoming Arbour building in Toronto are two such examples. These buildings are challenging for practitioners to design, and presently only a limited number of engineering institutions across Canada offer a...

An increased environmental conscientiousness in society and the abundance of timber in Canada has inevitably led to the desire for more timber construction. In order to increase the opportunity for timber products in construction, novel building systems such as post-tensioned (PT) timber have been developed. Limited development on numerical modelli...

A previous study by the authors that was conducted on students in accredited undergraduate engineering programs showed significant differences between men's and women's experiences in their programs. That previous first-stage study highlighted that the causes of Canada's low retention of women in the field may be at least partially attributable to...

The present study investigated how visitors to a Canadian cultural centre (a museum) reacted to cue based announcements that indicated to them to leave the building. The purpose of this study is to further inform contemporary models of occupant movement in public spaces by accounting for individual-and group-level tendencies to engage in certain be...

Resilient design requires information about a structure’s response to a variety of exposures such that systems can be implemented to prevent unacceptable losses. For the case of critical infrastructure like bridges, losses associated with structural damage and traffic closures from fire events can be substantial. Despite this, there are no specific...

A previous study by the authors that was conducted on students in accredited undergraduate engineering programs showed significant differences between men’s and women’s experiences in their programs. That previous first-stage study highlighted that the causes of Canada’s low retention of women in the field may be at least partially attributable to...

This study focuses on the fire performance of glass fiber–reinforced polymer (GFRP) stay-in-place structural formwork used for the rapid construction of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge decks and serves to direct future studies on the matter. Seven beam sections of a concrete deck reinforced using a GFRP stay-in-place form are tested. The beams in t...

With more frequent and destructive wildfires occurring in the growing wildland-urban interface (WUI), the ability to ensure the safe evacuation of potentially large groups of people is of increasing importance. This is a challenging task made only more difficult by the fact that there is often little warning and that evacuations often need to take...

The Lateral Ignition and Flame Spread Test (LIFT) is used to characterize fire ignition and flame spread on solid materials. This test requires the operator to visually monitor the flame spread over a combustible material and manually record the position of the flame during an experiment. Visual inspection limits the quantity of data obtained from...

In 2015, 56.8% of enrollments in Canadian universities for a bachelor program were women [1]. In Fall 2017, 46.7% of those who started undergraduate programs at the University of Waterloo identified as female or another gender [2]. That same term, only 30.7% of students who entered an engineering undergraduate program at UW were women or another ge...

While it is understood that there is an issue in retention of women in STEM fields, there is little research addressing why this is occurring. This warrants the need to begin identifying the root of this issue, and the direct causes. Undergraduate engineering programs are the first phase students undertake in their pursuit of a career as a professi...

As engineered timber such as Glulam is seeing increasing use in tall timber buildings, building codes are adapting to allow for this. In order for this material to be used confidently and safely in one of these applications, there is a need to understand the effects that fire can have on an engineered timber structural member. The post-fire resilie...

Events hosted at stadiums attract large crowds, which requires an in-depth consideration of human behaviour to safely design and manage these structures. There is a growing demand to build new and revitalize current stadiums to a larger capacity to maximize revenue potential and minimize construction costs. However, there is little public data avai...

The goal of fire safety engineering (FSE) is to design a strategy that meets human safety and property protection goals with an optimized solution. In comparison to international practice, Canada could be considered highly underdeveloped in a technical perspective of performance versus prescription. In Canada, FSE is a subdivision within civil and...

AbstractThis paper presents experimental results of tensile strength tests on glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars at high temperatures. These results are a part of a comprehensive study on characteristics of GFRP reinforcing bars from different manufacturers. To represent real construction practices, commonly used #5 GFRP reinforcing bars wi...

While it is understood that there is an issue in retention of women in STEM fields, there is little research addressing why this is occurring. This warrants the need to begin identifying the root of this issue, and the direct causes. Undergraduate engineering programs are the first phase in the pursuit of a career as a professional engineer, and ev...

This study presents an overview of a civil engineering materials course curriculum at Carleton University developed by the authors. The curriculum aims to move away from traditional civil engineering materials courses, which focus heavily on concepts related to material science, and instead concentrate on concepts that are more relevant to today’s...

Timber heritage structures are prevalent worldwide due to the inherent ease of their construction prior to the popularization of contemporary concrete and steel buildings in the late 19th century. As material reuse or conservation becomes a more popular and sustainable option, the performance of these timber structures is being (re) examined, and t...

This study presents an overview of a civil engineering materials course curriculum at Carleton University developed by the authors. The curriculum aims to move away from traditional civil engineering materials courses, which focus heavily on concepts related to material science, and instead concentrate on concepts that are more relevant to today’s...

This study addresses the fire performance of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) stay-in-place (SIP) structural formwork. Seven concrete slab strips constructed using a commercially available GFRP SIP structural form are tested. The GFRP formwork consists of a flat bottom plate with T-shaped ribs protruding upwards along its length that are desig...

Society is constantly being pushed in a more sustainable direction, which has resulted in substantial advances in Engineered Wood Product (EWP) technologies in the construction industry. Engineered wood products have many benefits including a high strength to weight ratio, carbon sequestration as well as ease of construction as many EWP systems are...

Carleton University has re-launched one of its flag-ship courses in the field of Fire Safety Engineering: People in Fires. Detailed and concrete experiential learning activities created for this course are discussed. The activities are evaluated on their ability for the students to meet complicated learning objectives involving human behavior, with...

The inclusion of human behaviour in fire engineering design increasingly utilizes egress modelling software to demonstrate the time required for evacuation in the case of a fire emergency. These models are being developed to incorporate aspects of social influence, account for variations in pre-evacuation times, and movement speeds. However, in ord...

Over the past several years, the consideration of fire to the structural performance of buildings has seen more inclusion in the design process. To this extent, a CISC-ICCA supported research project entitled Towards a Performance Based Fire Design Framework for Composite Steel Deck Construction in Canada was undertaken by the authors with the goal...

In response to an aging population and an increasing number of fires in homes designed for the care of the elderly, this research project looks at the role that human behaviour plays in the fire safety of long term care (LTC) and retirement homes. Through reaching out to care homes in Ottawa, Canada, interviewing senior staff members, and observing...

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the underlying mechanics of fire damaged engineered timber products. A focus was put on box-beam sections which could be used in a posttensioned timber structural system. It is important to understand the failure mechanisms in these systems to facilitate the design of fire safe buildings and to...

Society depends on critical infrastructure – of which the closure due to fire can result in severe economic losses. If post-fire rehabilitation is done incorrectly, it can also result in life safety risk. A portion of global critical infrastructure is built using prestressed concrete. Prestressed concrete uses steel that has been chemically and mec...

This paper extends discussion of previous research presented by the authors on post-tensioned (PT) concrete flexural elements in fire. Tests on two monostrand, continuous PT concrete slabs (one with an unbonded tendon and the other bonded) exposed to constant incident heat fluxes while under sustained load are reviewed and discussed. During testing...

Carleton University has re-launched one of its flag-ship courses in the field of Fire Safety Engineering: People in Fires. Detailed and concrete experiential learning activities created for this course are discussed. The activities are evaluated on their ability for the students to meet complicated learning objectives involving human behavior, with...

Recently in Canada, the national building code has been amended to include mid-rise engineered timber buildings. The code also contains an allowance for Alternative Solutions, in which taller and more complex engineered timber structures may be built with sufficient research and proof of performance. For sustainable material use in infrastructure,...

As most jurisdictions move towards the adoption of performance-based structural fire design codes it is crucial that the behavior of all structures in fire is scientifically and rationally understood. Post-tensioned (PT) concrete structures are no exception. PT concrete is widely believed to benefit from its ‘inherent fire endurance.’ This belief,...

In contemporary buildings, less is more. With new construction technologies and building materials, structures are being built with open floor plans and larger than ever before spans. Post-tensioned (PT) concrete is excellent at optimizing material usage, which helps designers meet stringent sustainability objectives while creating desirable large...

Post-tensioned (PT) concrete is an increasingly popular technology since it allows for rapid construction using less material than conventional concrete. While its use has been widespread in the United States since the late 1950s, it has recently seen wider popularity in Europe, China, and the Middle East. PT concrete uses high strength cold-drawn...

In 1898, in the offices of the Roebling Company at 121 Liberty street in New York City (present day location of the ‘Ground Zero’ World Trade Center memorial), Abraham Himmelwright wrote the original necessary requirements for ideal structural fire testing to be of value. Structural fire tests performed at Himmelwright’s time were based upon an exp...

Performance-based design is the growing paradigm in contemporary structural engineering, and structural fire safety engineering is no exception. Advocates of performance-based methodologies seek to adopt sophisticated fire strategies tailored to individual building needs. In particular, these strategies are being applied to optimized reinforced con...

This SpringerBrief equips readers to develop defensible fire safety designs for a range of concrete structures. It identifies current gaps in the research and provides a more complete understanding of the structural and thermal response of contemporary Post-tensioned (PT) concrete structures to fire. The brief includes chapters on contemporary cons...

When prestressing steel (PS) is applied as continuous unbonded tendons within concrete, as in the case of post-tensioned (PT) construction, localized damage to the tendons may affect the integrity of the entire structure. When fire exposed, unbonded PT concrete structures are prone to tendon rupture because of a complex relaxation and strength redu...

On January 23 rd , 2014, a fire at a nursing home in L'Isle-Verte, Quebec Canada killed 32 people. This was not the first fire of this kind, similar nursing and long term care home (LTC) fires have occurred worldwide. Although there are many factors that can contribute to loss of life in such an incident, a well-designed and implemented architectur...

The lack of adequate information on glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) material characteristics at high temperatures lowers the accuracy of analytical and design models developed to predict the behaviour of GFRP reinforced concrete members. This paper presents experimental results of a series of tensile tests on GFRP bars at elevated temperature...