As always, you can access these from the Newsletter archive (tab above).
The next speaker's topic is sure to be interesting, with the December 13 Future Fuel technical event, as mentioned in a previous post. Be sure not to miss it!
Also, please note the calendar has had to change recently, so if you had subscribed to our past calendar and it is no longer working, please go over to the Events Calendar tab and subscribe to the new one. We had to make a change for a back end platform tweak.
ADD SAE NW's MEETING
TO YOUR CALENDAR:
https://sae.webex.com/sae/j.php?MTID=md019d5f0acf0900c77ab102c8fec9d07
SAE NW Technical event: Engineering Challenges of Placing Light Rail
across a Floating Bridge with John Sleavin, Deputy Executive Director of
Design Engineering and Construction Management at Sound Transit is
on Dec 7 at 5PM PST.
Running light rail over a floating bridge has never been done before
anywhere in the world. Sound Transit will be the first agency to ever do
this. Installing light rail across the flexing, twisting I‑90 Lake
Washington Floating Bridge presented a host of unique engineering
challenges including weight limitations, ensuring electric-powered
trains could travel safely across a large body of water, and more. We’ll
cover a few of them and go into detail on how they placed light rail
tracks from the fixed bridge to the floating bridge across eight
transition joints, each of which had to accommodate six degrees of
movement. We’ll trace the engineering challenges from early concept,
through design, testing, and installation.
John Sleavin’s engineering career includes an impressive array of
transportation projects, including several in Malaysia, Singapore, and
Portland. In Seattle, the projects he’s been involved with are almost
the history of major engineering projects within the region. They
include Link Light Rail in Tacoma, the South Lake Union Streetcar,
Sounder Commuter Rail between Seattle and Tacoma, the original Downtown
Seattle Transit Tunnel, construction of the light rail segment from
downtown to the airport including Beacon Hill tunnels, the University
and Northgate Link Extensions, and the 14-mile East Link Extension which
includes the I‑90 Floating Bridge. Currently John oversees Link
Extensions to the Tacoma Dome, West Seattle, Ballard, and Everett, and
Operations and Maintenance Facilities North and South.
Our guest speaker will be William (Bill) Chamberlin. Conventional petroleum-based transportation fuels have undesirable impacts on health, the environment, and geopolitics. Advances in fuels, and power/storage systems may address issues that are concerning without sacrificing mobility expectations. Bill Chamberlin will draw on his 30+ years in R&D and participation in alternative fuel developments to highlight some of the obstacles to progressing these advances to reality. The current desire to move away from the hazards of current fossil fuels will not be a success if it results in exchanging known problems for new ones. Previous efforts to develop alternatives can highlight some of the issues that need to be considered for a successful transition. Some examples of the areas that will be discussed are safety, cost, and resource supply.
Brief Biography (William Chamberlin)
MS, BA Chemistry, Miami U. (Ohio). Thirty four years R&D at Lubrizol developing lubricants for advanced power plants and alternative fuels; retired (to consultant) 2004. Fellow Society of Automotive Engineers, 2003 Outstanding Chemist of Year Award (Northeastern Ohio Am. Chem. Soc. Section); 19 publications, 2 book entries, 15 U.S. Patents
SAE NW Technical event: Seattle’s Clean Transportation Electrification Blueprint with Andrea Pratt, Climate and Transportation Advisor for the Seattle Mayor’s Office of Sustainability & Environment on Nov 16, 2021, 5 PM Pacific.
Seattle’s Transportation Electrification Blueprint is a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive citywide plan that outlines how the City will move toward a clean and equitable transportation system to reduce climate emissions and air pollution, increase electric mobility options, and create a pipeline of green jobs and workforce diversity. The result of this collective, multi-departmental effort is a 2030 vision for Seattle’s electrified future and outlines concrete actions City departments will take over the next two years that will make progress towards those goals.
Andrea Pratt manages the citywide transportation electrification program and works to advance policy, pilots, strategic planning, stakeholder engagement and pushing market transformation to electrify everything that moves people, goods and services. Her efforts are centered on racial equity and environmental justice. She coordinated and authored Seattle’s Transportation Electrification Blueprint:
Dr. Mohamed Zaher will be our guest speaker for the meeting, discussing "what every automotive engineer needs to know" with regards to electric and highly-electrified vehicles.
SAE BC is proud to support Volterra, a Vancouver-based software company with a focus on electric vehicle battery health management and performance. Check out their 3 job openings: backend developer, EV telematics engineer, and frontend developer on our website: https://www.saebritishcolumbia.org/p/job-postings.html
Canadian highway bus darling MCI had a demonstration coach run through the province recently, where it set an electric bus distance record, going from Vancouver to Kelowna on a single charge:
The same bus had actually set the previous record on a prior trip, from Kelowna to Delta, but had so much charge left in reserve, the crew gained confidence that the trip could be done in reverse, climbing up the Coquihalla Highway.
Photo by Jay Munoz of Caption Photography Media
Congratulations to the team behind the vehicle, from engineering, to craftsmen to operators, and thank you for making beautiful British Columbia a part of the record attempt!
