University Sections

OTU & Metropolitan Toronto University

Toronto Section

Not quite three months into the year and seems longer. Always, all the best for 2020 and stay healthy.

Two years ago the Toronto Section moved from seven monthly dinner meetings to 2 half day workshop with 5-6 speakers for each one. The advantages were more speakers, less travel plus being a half day finishing by 12:00 if you wanted to leave so it did not cut into family time. This has been successful with about 40 attendees each time. We had planned one for this May 28 at the PetroCanada facilities but because of the current health concerns we have postponed it. We did have some good speakers lined up and will likely do a full day in the fall. Stay tuned.

The Toronto Section has been very active at some local universities. Behshad Sabah with PC has done a great job at Ryerson and George Staniewski has done similar work at OTU (was UOIT) in Oshawa. We now have about 20 student members. Ken Brown also gave a presentation to both groups and this is available on our website. It stressed how we need to do better to prevent tribological failures.

Ryerson University	Ontario Technical University
Professor Vincent Chan	Professor Amirkianoosh Kiani
Fahim Khan	Meisam Moghareh Abe
Paddy Sham	Seyedmahmoud Sahebari
Sara Azimi	Mohammad Beigi
Kent Penaranda	Rexana Pao
Marek Serwin	Allison Yuen
Tanzina Nowshin	Johsi Shreeneikat
Quinn Bell	Amr Salem
Adam Gleeson	Behang Mohajer
	Travir Mahmud
	Waleed Ahmed
	Yashashwi Tanker
	Zahra Khadabaskhshi

Meisam Abed and Ken Brown beside the OTU STLE poster for the presentation.

On other section news, Behshad Sabah (PC) will be our Chair for this year, replacing Jim Arner. Congratulations Behshad. Jim has done a great job stepping in for the last three years and he will continue to help the section.

Lastly, our Ken Brown has been awarded the Vic Joll for 2020. This award recognizes outstanding and selfless contributions by a member of an STLE section. Normally this is presented at the Annual Meeting. Ken is our second winner of this award with Jim Arner being the first in 2015.

If you can help or have ideas for the Toronto Section please let us know.

75th STLE Annual Meeting & Exhibition
Hyatt Regency Chicago | Chicago, IL (USA)

Due to the Coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), the STLE 75th Annual Meeting & Exhibition scheduled to take place in Chicago on May 3-7, 2020 is CANCELED.

As the last few weeks have unfolded, it has become clear that STLE could not hold the 2020 STLE Annual Meeting & Exhibition in a way we could reasonably ensure the safety of all participants from the COVID-19. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this disease.

In addition, on March 13, 2020 Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker mandated that all events with more than 1,000 people be canceled or postponed to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Governor also encouraged event organizers around the state to consider canceling or postponing any gatherings of over 250 people to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through the details of rescheduling the event with the hotel, the annual meeting planning committee, presenters, exhibitors, sponsors, corporate members and attendees.

It is disappointing that we are not able to bring the world’s Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers together at this time, but we are looking forward to announcing our future plans shortly.

Kind regards,

Michael P. Duncan

STLE President

STLE Toronto Section helps at UOIT

On March 26 at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa our George Staniewski (OPG) gave a presentation on fire resistant steam turbine control fluid degradation for their Research Day and in the evening Jim Arner (Pirr Tribology Solutions) gave a talk on hydraulic fluids for their Students Night. The contact was Professor Atef Mohany, Department of Automotive, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.

For more details on UOIT STLE activities please contact Prof. Mohany

February Toronto Section Meeting

Our meeting featured Dr. Maureen Hunter from King Industries who gave an interesting talk on the characteristics and opportunities for ‘Alkylated Naphthalenes’. She is also the current President of STLE.

We also had a number of representatives from Ryerson University and the University of Waterloo.

From left to right we have the following;
Marcel Lun (Student Chapter, Ryerson University), Prof Vincent Chan (Ryerson University), Behshad Sabah (Chair and Membership Chair, Senior Technical Advisor – Hollyfrontier, Petro-Canada), Wayne Mackwood (Toronto Section past Chair, Lanexess) and Professor John Medley (University of Waterloo).