Manufacture and deployment of a composite personal belongings carrier for the homeless community - Phase II

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A recent national report by the Canadian Homelessness Research Network (CHRN) and the Canadian Allianceto End Homelessness showed that nearly 30,000 Canadians are homeless every night. Despite periodic successin addressing homelessness problem, little progress has been made toward more permanent and sustainablesolution. To assist in moving toward the latter solution, the Metro Community in the Okanagan region incollaboration with several other parties, including Waterplay Solutions Corp as a leading local manufacture,the University of British Columbia-Okanagan Campus, City of Kelowna RCMP, and members from homelesscommunity has initiated a unique initiative to design and manufacture a Personal Belongings Carrier (PBC)which will be a secure and mobile structure providing an alternative to open public spaces or shopping carts forthe homeless to manage their personal belongings. Ultimately, the introduction of this engineering product isintended to foster an increased sense of security for the homeless and provide them with an opportunity to storetheir belongings, while managing other aspects of their lives. As the first phase of the above collaborativeindustry-university-community initiative, the university team and Waterplay Solutions Corp through thisNSERC project will assess the glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) as a promising candidate material type forthe PBC product, owing to its light weights, high mechanical properties, manufacturability, and durability.More specifically, through an advanced multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach an optimum GFRPlaminate is desired which can meet all design requirements for the PBC, including resistance to naturalweathering variations. The main factors to be considered during laminate selection will include the polymermatrix material/cure kinetics, fibre volume fraction, laminate lay-up, and hygrothermal performance. Next toits exclusive contribution to the PBC initiative, the knowledge to be gained from this research is expected toresults in best-practice guidelines for other Canadian manufacturers as to how different GFRP laminates wouldscore against environmental durability criteria for outdoor applications.