Across its departments, the School of Engineering and Applied Science has a strong
history of top-flight research into the multifaceted field of transportation.
These activities span from materials research within chemical engineering and
materials science, to automobile accident research within mechanical and aerospace
engineering, to traffic modeling in civil engineering, and to transportation safety
within electrical engineering.
The Automobile Safety Laboratory is an interdisciplinary
program of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Medicine
(through the Center for Prevention of Disease and Injury). Since the mid-1970's,
this facility has been enthusiastically funded by industry and government sources
for research in biomechanics, computational mechanics, and vehicle crashworthiness.
Within
the Civil Engineering Department, the engineering school houses the Center for
Transportation Studies (CTS), an interdisciplinary program of research, education,
and technology transfer that includes the Smart Travel Lab, a state-of-the-art
facility which studies the rapidly emerging area of intelligent transportation
systems (ITS). This lab uses continuously transmitted data and video from two
of the Virginia Department of Transportation's (VDOT's) traffic control systems
to provide researchers with real-time signal operation and loop detector data
as well as archived data.
Within the Chemical Engineering Department there
is a set of faculty who actively research fuel cells, critical components in future
power generation systems. The Materials Science and Engineering Department studies
corrosion issues and coating systems for various segments of the transportation
industry.
The engineering school has recently established a Center for Safety-Critical
Systems within the Electrical Engineering Department. Researchers within the center
study the complex interactions among computers, physical systems, communications
systems, and people. The center is currently working with the Federal Railroad
Administration to develop a process for railroad system suppliers which will help
demonstrate the safety of their products. The center also has a project underway
with Boeing to build safety-critical considerations into that company's design
process.
