Guy L. Larose

The work that Dr. Guy Larose and his colleagues do for a living will blow you away. Especially if you happen to be a model of a bridge that wasn’t designed correctly. As research officers at the National Research Council Institute for Aerospace Research (NRC - IAR) in the Bluff Body Aerodynamics Group of the Aerodynamics Laboratory, they conduct wind tunnel tests on every kind of structure that is affected by wind but doesn’t fly. That includes bridges, buildings, NASCAR race vehicles—even skiers and speed skaters.

When speed skaters reach their maximum speed on ice, the friction between their skate blades and the ice becomes almost nonexistent. The only things slowing them down are their own endurance and the wind resistance as air flows over their bodies. A speed skater’s racing suit is one of the keys to victory. Canadian speed skaters Catriona LeMay Doan and Jeremy Wotherspoon were able to use the lab’s wind tunnel facilities to determine what type of suit would match their skills as top athletes and give them the best chance for victory. The wind tunnel facilities have also been used to help Canada’s national ski team, bobsleigh athletes, and ski jumpers and to test the aerodynamic design of NASCAR and Indy vehicles.

Models of the bridges at Tacoma Narrows.

Dr. Larose’s specialty is bridges. The importance of his work is underscored by a single event that happened in 1940: the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge. Having been open to traffic for only a few months, the bridge collapsed into Puget Sound when wind forces on one particular day induced vibrations strong enough to destroy the bridge. By testing scale models of proposed bridge designs in the wind tunnel, Dr. Larose prevents disasters like the one at Tacoma Narrows from happening again.

Testing the aerodynamics of a skier in the wind tunnel.

Ten years after the collapse, a new bridge with a different design was built at Tacoma Narrows and is still in use today. Because of their expertise in helping to make bridges safe, Dr. Larose and his team were tasked with investigating how a new bridge—built right beside the old bridge to accommodate heavier traffic—would hold up to the new wind patterns that the added structure would cause. Tests were conducted on scale models of the bridges in the NRC 9 metre by 9 metre wind tunnel in Ottawa. It was the first time that two such models of suspension bridges were ever tested side by side.

Early Influences

Dr. Larose’s interest in science as a career was spurred by publications that dealt with scientific topics. “When I was 14 years old, NRC published a newsletter, Science Dimension, that highlighted the work its researchers were carrying out. By filling out and returning a form on the back of the magazine, I was able to receive it free of charge because I was a student.” Articles in magazines like National Geographic fuelled his imagination. Anyone knowing his family would have thought that a career in health science might have been a natural choice for him, as his father was a doctor and his mother a nurse. He followed a path towards engineering.

His father was rarely able to travel because there were few doctors in the community and he was committed to providing continuous healthcare. While admiring his parents’ commitment, Guy realized that he would only be happy if he had a job that allowed him to travel. After meeting his neighbour’s brother, who was a field engineer in the area of oil exploration, “I realized that I could combine my growing interest in science with my desire to see the world.”

Steps Along the Way

“I consider myself an applied scientist,” Dr. Larose explains. In other words, he takes scientific knowledge generated by other scientists, adds to it, and uses it to solve everyday problems. After graduating with a mechanical engineering degree from the Université Laval in 1984, he found employment first with a manufacturer of equipment for the forest industry and then with the Centre de recherches industrielles du Québec . But he missed that experimental aspect that interested him so much, and the satisfaction that came from doing hands on experiments.

He joined an internship program at the University of Western Ontario to do his Master’s degree in wind engineering under the supervision of Dr A. G. Davenport. What appealed to him was that he could work as a wind tunnel test engineer on bridges while he worked towards graduation. After just over three years, with a Master’s degree in his pocket, he met people from a company that were planning to do wind tunnel tests for a large bridge in Denmark—the same bridge, in fact, that he had studied for his Master’s degree. Guy moved to Denmark to work for the company and eventually obtained a PhD from the Technical University of Denmark. After several years, he moved back to Canada to work for the NRC, an organization that had so significantly influenced his decision to become a scientist all those years before.

Why a Career in Government?

Working as a government scientist provides Dr. Larose with the opportunity to solve real-world problems that not only have a direct impact on Canadians, but benefit people in different parts of the world. He also takes great pride in being able to represent Canada on the international stage, showing off Canadian expertise in an area that is crucial to both economic growth and people’s safety.

Tips for Success

Knowing yourself—what you want to do and what you don’t want to do—is an important factor in developing a successful and satisfying career as a scientist. When you have determined what interests you the most, you should pursue it with as much effort as you can. It’s important to talk to as many people as possible who work in the fields that you are interested in. They can give valuable advice and may open doors for you when interesting opportunities arise. “It’s also important to force yourself into situations that are not really familiar to you, so that you can test how you react to the unknown. This will help you define who you are.”