A high-speed imaging facility for Queen's University

观察和测量行为的快速变化的能力是理解土木工程和人类互动中许多最重要的问题的关键。在加拿大，土木工程界面临着紧迫的挑战，即如何评估与(I)气候变化引发的山体滑坡、(Ii)老化的钢筋混凝土基础设施和(Iii)劣化的铁路基础系统相关的风险。正如加拿大和世界各地最近发生的事件所表明的那样，山体滑坡可能会对周围的人口和交通网络造成毁灭性的影响。然而，对于这些快速事件的关键驱动因素，包括与气候变化相关的日益恶劣的天气事件的影响，人们知之甚少。许多建于二十世纪中叶的钢筋混凝土结构的设计寿命即将结束，但不能全部更换。相反，需要更好地了解它们的性能，以便只有在必要时才对它们进行修复或更换，而不会损害加拿大公众的安全。加拿大铁路也存在类似的问题，不可能大规模更换铁轨，因此必须使用本地化维修。然而，很难确定哪些轨道区域需要维修，并确保这些维修是有效的。将这些领域联系在一起的是对强大的动态数据集的需求，这些数据集将使工程师能够更好地理解和预测行为。心理学中也存在类似的需求，面部表情的动态和微妙变化是理解人类互动的这一方面的关键。

The ability to observe and measure rapid changes in behaviour is the key to understanding many of the most significant problems in both civil engineering and human interaction. In Canada the civil engineering community faces pressing challenges in how to assess the risk associated with (i) climate change driven landslides, (ii) aging reinforced concrete infrastructure and (iii) deteriorated railway foundation systems. As recent events across Canada and around the world have illustrated, landslides can have a devastating effect on surrounding populations and transportation networks. And yet there is little understanding of the key drivers of these rapid events including the effect of increasingly severe weather events associated with climate change. Many reinforced concrete structures that were built in the mid-twentieth century are approaching the end of their design lives but cannot all be replaced. Instead a better understanding of their performance is required so that they are repaired or replaced only when necessary without compromising the safety of the Canadian public. Similar issues exist on Canadian railways where a wholesale replacement of tracks is impossible and so localized repairs must be used. However detecting which areas of track require repair and ensuring that these repairs are effective is difficult to do. What links each of these areas is the need for robust dynamic data sets that will allow engineers to better understand and predict behaviour. A similar need exists in psychology where dynamic and subtle changes in facial expressions are the key to understanding this aspect of human interaction.