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RWDI

Canadian engineering company

Summary

Canadian engineering company

FieldValue
nameRWDI (Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin)
logo
imageRWDI HQ.jpg
image_captionRWDI's Global Head Office in Guelph, Canada
typePrivate
foundation1972
location600 Southgate Drive
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 4P6
key_peopleMike Soligo, President
num_employees~800 (2023)
industryEngineering and construction consulting, environmental consulting, professional services, urban planning
subsidMotioneering, Orbital Stack, ParticleOne, RWDI Ventures
homepage

Guelph, Ontario N1G 4P6

Established in 1972, Rowan Williams Davies & Irwin Inc. (RWDI) is a Canadian engineering consulting firm that specializes in wind engineering and environmental engineering. The RWDI group of companies has offices in Canada, USA, United Kingdom, India, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Australia. The company's headquarters is based in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.

RWDI has featured on numerous television documentaries involving wind engineering and related services for the world's tallest skyscrapers and landmark structures. The firm's facilities include five boundary-layer wind tunnels, an open channel water flume, MM5 computer models for simulating atmospheric weather conditions, and advanced computer modelling capabilities, including computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The company created a software-as-a-service, web-based platform called Orbital Stack, a flow visualization model simulator that allows designers and engineers to rapidly iterate on their designs while seeing the microclimate impact on a 3D viewer.

RWDI also has in-house model shops at each of its wind tunnel facilities that use stereolithography technology, integrated data acquisition, storage and processing systems, computer-aided drafting, and a broad base of specialized instrumentation. The firm has conducted wind engineering on projects including the London Millennium Bridge, International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong, Petronas Towers in Malaysia, Freedom Tower on the WTC Site, the second span of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Taipei 101 Tower, and the mega-skyscraper Burj Khalifa, currently the world's tallest building. The company conducts climate and performance engineering in many areas, including environmental noise and air quality modeling, building science and enclosures, acoustics, geoscience, sustainability and energy modeling, as well as weather forecasting and meteorology services.

RWDI currently has Platinum Club status as part of Canada's Best Managed Companies.

History

RWDI started with snow accumulation and drifting studies for Southern Ontario’s farming community. Frank Theakston, a professor at the University of Guelph in the Ontario Agricultural College, developed a technique to simulate ground-level winds and drifting snow using an open-channel water flume. Bill Rowan, one of RWDI's founders, worked with Theakston and marketed the technique to local architectural firms. The Canadian government eventually included it in design standards.

In 1974, Colin Williams joined to work on the water flume. Anton Davies led the building of the first wind tunnel in 1978, and Peter Irwin joined in 1980 to further develop the firm's wind engineering capabilities. In 1982, the firm became a branch of Morrison Hershfield.

After projects including Toronto's SkyDome (1985) and the Wind-gate in Buffalo (1984), the founding members wanted to establish their own firm. Thus, Bill Rowan, Colin Williams, Anton Davies, and Peter Irwin formed Rowan Williams Davies and Irwin (RWDI). Bill Rowan was its first President.

References

References

  1. "CTBUH Gold Member RWDI".
  2. (2014-12-04). "RWDI move boon to job market". Guelph Tribune.
  3. (2017-09-22). "RWDI - A top environmental consulting firm {{!}} Business View Digital".
  4. "Engineering e-Newsletter Spotlight".
  5. "Platinum Club members {{!}} Canada's Best Managed Companies".
  6. Keeling, Betty. (17 July 1969). "Receives engineering distinction". News Bulletin University of Guelph.
  7. "William Rowan, P.Eng".
  8. "RWDI Creates Better Habitats {{!}} 2016-05-11 {{!}} ENR {{!}} Engineering News-Record".
  9. "Anton Davies – CTBUH".
  10. "Peter Irwin – CTBUH".
  11. (3 April 2019). "Wind engineer reaches dizzying heights".
  12. (2019-03-28). "Why this Ontario engineering firm is the go-to for starchitects designing the world's supertall towers". The Globe and Mail.
  13. (2023-08-02). "Taipei 101". Wikipedia.
  14. (2005-07-19). "Taipei 101's 730-Ton Tuned Mass Damper".
  15. Higgins, Michelle. (2015-08-07). "Keeping Skyscrapers From Blowing in the Wind". The New York Times.
  16. "Damping Projects".
  17. "RWDI Ventures".
  18. "AI-powered CFD Tool Based on Decades of Wind Tunnel Data".
  19. "Orbital Stack".
  20. "ClimateFirst: Manage Climate Risk and Costs for Buildings".
  21. ParticleOne. "Canadian engineers and scientists develop technology to measure, track, and reduce COVID risks inside buildings".
  22. "ParticleOne".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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