Douglas Romilly

Associate Professor Emeritus

P.Eng.; B.A.Sc., Ph.D. (Waterloo); Member of SEM, ASM, SAE, RESNA

Research Interests

• Solid Body Mechanics / Fatigue and Fracture
• Mechanical Design / Numerical Modeling
• Biomechanics

* Note: Dr. Romilly will be retiring as of July 2016 and thus is not accepting new students.

Current Research Work

• Vehicle and Road Safety: As a current researcher and project leader in the AUTO 21 – Networks of Centres of Excellence for Canada, and a past coordinator of the UBC / Transport Canada Accident Investigation and Research Team at UBC, significant research effort has been directed towards several areas related to vehicle crashworthiness and occupant safety. These include: a) quantifying the occupant dynamics related to “whiplash” type loading from rear-end collisions at low speed, b) investigating the effect of automotive seat design characteristics and the potential for improved seat design as they relate to both occupant comfort and safety during long-term seating and rear-end collisions, and c) developing a new strategy for improved vehicle design to enhance side impact protection. The focus of these studies is to enhance our understanding of how vehicle design issues relate to vehicle crashworthiness, and to develop methods to enhance the design of specific vehicle components to reduce injury.
• Fracture Control of Components: Interest in this area is focused on the development and/or application of fracture mechanics (FM) methods to determine the structural integrity of components. The development of elastic-plastic FM modeling and experimental techniques to assess pressure vessel safety (e.g. natural gas pipelines, NGV cylinders, etc.), as well as the application of linear elastic FM and fatigue models to assess life of complex structures (e.g. damage tolerance of aircraft structures for re-life and inspection, hybrid structures such as composite repairs for cracked aluminum aircraft structure, life prediction of lumber bandsaw blades, etc.) are current major areas of interest. Work is also being initiated to incorporate a “physics-based” approach into holistic models for improved accuracy of component life predictions for use in structural inspection programs.
• Biomechanics and Rehabilitation Engineering: Research areas have included the development of: a) a tongue force measurement device for the diagnosis and treatment of dysphagia, b) a device to quantify spasticity for the evaluation of applied therapy, c) an upper limb orthosis for persons having upper limb dysfunction, plus d) an interface compliance-independent pressure transducer for biomedical use. Modeling of biomechanical systems have also been a focus of work in this area (e.g. prediction of the stress distribution under a pneumatic surgical tourniquet cuff, stresses resulting from the biting action of the human mandible, pressure modification due to invasive transducers, etc.). A further research interest is in the area of robotic safety and is the subject of a current research study.

Selected Publications

• M. I. White, E. Desapriya, D. P. Romilly, and D. Peiris, “The Whiplash Prevention Campaign: Social marketing approaches to reduce neck injuries arising from motor vehicle collisions,” CMRSC XXIV, 2014.
• E. Desapriya, D. S. Hewapathirane, D. P. Romilly, and M. I. White, “A brief educational program improves awareness regarding whiplash prevention among a cohort of vehicle fleet managers in british columbia, Canada,” Traffic injury prevention, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 373–377, 2012.
• D. P. Romilly, H. Luk, M. Chien, K. Poon, M. White, and E. Desapriya, “Whiplash Prevention Campaign Initiative: Further Development and Implementation of an Observational Study Protocol for Assessing Proper Head Restraint Use,” in 21st Canadian Multidisciplinary Road Safety Conference, 2011.
• D. P. Romilly, P. Eng, H. Luk, P. Xing, M. White, and E. Desapriya, “Whiplash Prevention Campaign Initiative: Development of an Observational Protocol for Proper Head Restraint Use,” Proc. CMRSC-XXI, pp. 8–11, 2011.
• T. W. Korioth, D. P. Romilly, and A. G. Hannam, “salaries, employment opportunities and migration of engineers,” International Migration, 2009.

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