St. John's Centifuge Modelling Facility

圣约翰离心机建模设施是一个专门的国家设施，用于土木工程问题的缩小比例物理建模，涉及重力依赖的材料行为，特别是土壤，冰和富含冰的土壤。该技术的基础是，模型和全尺寸之间的自重效应是相似的，通过使模型增强加速度水平。具体的示例应用程序是http://geotech.cv.titech.ac.jp/~cen-98/Library/MAIN.HTM。该设备已被用于研究各种岩土工程问题，从岩石到海冰，从管道到地基，从流动液化到油砂生产。自1993年以来，耗资570万美元的离心机中心已投入运作，利用率约为90%，目前正在对该设施进行升级，以提高其能力。加拿大学者通过现有的NSERC主要设施访问补助金获得了使用该设施的支持。该补助金提供所需总支持的30%:1)8人技术和研究支持人员；2)维护和运行；(3)其他直接成本，如材料、耗材和小型设备。在截至2005年8月的4年期间，该基金将该设施41%的资源用于学术研究，不收取机器时间或正常人员要求的费用。这项MFA申请是为了获得对工作人员的持续支持，以确保为学术研究人员保留30%的可用设施时间。根据潜在的商业收入，这一贡献的价值超过50万美元/年。学术和工业用户已在全国范围内大量使用。世界上有120多个这样的设施。其他四个加拿大设施比圣约翰的小得多，圣约翰是第八大，也是北美唯一一个设计用于模拟寒冷地区现象的离心机建模设施。离心机还包括一个地震致动器来模拟地震事件。

The St. John's Centrifuge Modelling Facility is a specialized national facility for reduced-scale physical modelling of civil engineering problems involving gravity-dependant material behaviour, particularly of soil, ice, and ice-rich soil. The basis of the technique is that self-weight effects between model and full-scale are made similar by subjecting the model to enhanced acceleration levels. Specific example applications are http://geotech.cv.titech.ac.jp/~cen-98/Library/MAIN.HTM. This facility has been used to investigate a wide range of  geotechnical issues ranging from  rock to sea-ice, from pipelines to foundations and from flow liquefaction to  oil sand production. Since 1993, the $5.7m centrifuge centre has been operational with about 90% utilization and upgrading of the facility to enhance its capabilities is ongoing. Canadian academics have had support to use the facility through an existing NSERC Major Facility Access grant  This grant provides 30% of the total support required for 1) The 8 person technical and research support staff; 2) maintenance and operation; and 3) other direct costs such as materials, supplies and small equipment for 2).  In the 4 year period to August 2005, this grant contributed to 41% of the facility's resources being dedicated to academic research with no charges for machine time or normal personnel requirements. This MFA application is made to obtain continued support for the staff essential for support to ensure that 30% of available facility time is reserved for academic researchers. This contribution is valued over $500k/annum based on potential commercial income. Significant national use has been made by academic and industrial users. There are over 120 such facilities in the world. Four other Canadian facilities are much smaller than that available in St John's, which is about the 8th largest and is the only centrifuge modelling facility in North America designed to model cold regions phenomena. The centrifuge also incorporates an earthquake actuator to model seismic events.