By Nick Houtman and Darryl Lai Marsha Lampi runs for distance – 5,000 or 10,000 meters in track, 5,000 or 6,000 meters in cross-country. The former Lincoln High School student from Portland enjoys pacing herself but is always looking to improve. “I usually think, if only I had done this or that differently, I could [...]
Tag » Engineering
May 10, 2010
Tsunami safe?
We’re overdue. If the Cascadia subduction zone behaves as it has in the past, an 8.0 to 8.5 earthquake and a resulting tsunami have a good chance of striking the Pacific Northwest in the next 50 years. That’s the take-home message from OSU marine geologist Chris Goldfinger’s studies of offshore debris flows. He has identified [...]
April 24, 2010
Preview of Coming Attractions
After Chile, Oregon prepares for Big One
March 15, 2010: “The Bridge Team’s goal for today was to determine the geographical extent of bridge damage from the Chilean earthquakes. We did this by driving nearly 450 miles south along Route 5 (the Pan American Highway) from Santiago to Temuco, keeping along the outer edge of the zone of strong shaking (about 50 [...]
April 23, 2010
Paying for Pavement
Vehicle mileage fee could replace the gas tax
Praise the gas tax. For every gallon pumped into pickups, SUVs and miserly subcompacts, Oregonians put 24¢ into the state highway fund and another 18.3¢ into the federal. On top of that, two Oregon counties (Washington and Multnomah) and 21 cities add their own levies for local roads. In 2005, about 80 percent of Oregon’s [...]
February 22, 2010
Two Business Startups Get Boost from OSU Fund
An innovative tax credit program aimed at fast-tracking commercialization of university research stands as a bright spot in Oregon’s sputtering economy.
February 22, 2010
Solar Gain
Photovoltaic advances lead to business development
With support from the University Venture Development Fund, Alex Chang and a student research team envision electricity-generating solar collectors built into windows, roofs and other building parts.
February 22, 2010
Girding the Grid: Engineers rethink power storage for wind
As wind turbines and solar arrays sprout up across the landscape, an urgent challenge arises: How to capture all that alternative energy for the electrical grid. Wind velocity and solar intensity vary wildly as weather changes and as seasons shift — fluctuations that are often out of sync with power demand. With $399,973 in funding [...]
February 22, 2010
Product Lines
These 12 biotechnology, energy and computer software companies account for about 300 jobs and $100 million in investment. They have spun off directly from or leveraged relationships with Oregon State University research. (Source: OSU Office of Technology Transfer) Strands Personal recommendation software Corvallis, Oregon Fizzy Fruit Carbonated strawberries and grapes Portland, Oregon Clear Shape Technologies [...]
January 22, 2010
Cells for Solar
Ocean plankton grow potential for solar technology
The diatom — an ancient form of single-celled algae — may hold the key to a new generation of cheap, clean solar technology.
June 23, 2009
Summer of Opportunity
Students plug into research
experiences at home and abroad
Ah, summer vacation. Time to kick back, right? Not so much for OSU students who are discovering opportunities to expand their horizons. They’re modeling blood flow, studying wildlife conservation in Africa, surveying Oregon’s old-growth forests and teaching entrepreneurship.
June 23, 2009
Camps Build Confidence and Sharpen Minds
Kids engage their brains in cool ways —
and get empowered at the same time
From Corvallis labs to Newport tidepools to Salem campgrounds, OSU experts are challenging K-12 kids to stretch their thinking and deepen their understanding of the natural and built environments. This summer, hundreds of Oregon children are limbering up their synapses in subjects as diverse as math and fine arts, engineering and journalism. They’re building brain [...]
April 24, 2009
Building Materials for Sustainability
In the burgeoning green building sector, Oregon is poised to become a national leader. A new R&D partnership forged with cross-university linkages positions the state as a major powerhouse in sustainable materials, technologies and designs. Oregon BEST (Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies Center) has pulled together $1.6 million in multi-source funding to infuse and expand [...]
April 24, 2009
Kearney Hall, Showcase for Civil Engineers
An antiquated building on OSU’s northeast corner has undergone a thoroughly modern makeover. Celebrants who attend Kearney Hall’s grand opening on May 15 will observe its 19th-century heritage faithfully refurbished on the exterior. But on the inside, Kearney has been utterly transformed. With its recycled materials, nontoxic finishes, salvaged woods, efficient lighting, low-flow fixtures and [...]
April 23, 2009
Power Surge
New nuclear technologies meet needs
for electricity and safety
Last winter, the cavernous vault housing OSU’s nuclear test facility was base camp for a team of elite scientists from Shanghai and Beijing. For six months, the Chinese engineers studied every bolt, tube and plastic elbow in the scale-model reactor. They ran accident simulations and analyzed the data. They posited every scenario under the sun, [...]
April 21, 2009
Power Surge
Nuclear power tends to stir strong feelings, both pro and con. New engineering approaches address issues such as waste, operating safety and proliferation and underscore the potential for nuclear to raise living standards while reducing carbon emissions. See the Power Surge story in Terra.
February 24, 2009
“Expedition” in Computational Sustainability
Scratch below the surface of a natural resources question and you’ll often find a tough nut to crack. The complex interactions among species and their habitats have bedeviled scientists from before Charles Darwin’s day to the present, preventing them in many cases from generating information that managers need to develop effective policies. Now a group [...]
January 23, 2009
Wired Watershed
Fiberoptics bring new precision to ecosystem sensing
It took a potato launcher, a canoe and a helium-filled balloon to propel a high-tech scientific enterprise during an international workshop at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest.
January 23, 2009
Lessons from the Magic Planet
Researchers are engaging the curious in meaningful inquiry
Researchers are engaging the curious in meaningful inquiry
September 23, 2008
Air Beneath Their Wings
Five undergraduates — five dreams. Blake Kelley sees a bright future for nuclear power and is learning all he can about reactor designs. For Hiromi Omatsu, the future is in technology that enables elderly people to stay in their own homes. Writing is Stephen Summers’ love. He publishes poetry and fiction in OSU’s student literary [...]
September 23, 2008
Fear and Loading
Whether you venture onto a few wooden planks over a trout stream, a steel colossus over a swift river or a concrete viaduct carrying bumper–to–bumper commuters, you trust the beams and girders to hold you up. This act of faith, made daily by millions of motorists on U.S. highways, was shaken last summer when a [...]
July 19, 2008
No Barriers
Access to mass transit opens the world to people with disabilities At night when she dreams, Marlene Massey hikes the Cascades on sturdy legs. But when she gets up in the morning, a four-inch curb can stop her cold. That’s because the 50-year-old Corvallis woman is in a wheelchair after losing a big chunk of [...]
July 19, 2008
Sustainable Supply Chains
Recycling spurs innovation
Recycling isn’t just for consumers. Manufacturers are finding competitive advantages in what is known as “end-of-life product management,” says OSU business professor Zhaohui Wu. While dealing with old desktop computers and other high-tech cast-offs can be expensive, innovative companies are redesigning their products — and their supply chains — in response to “take-back” laws cropping [...]
July 19, 2008
Wired Fantasies
There’s a cyber-equivalent of souping up your car inside and out: “modding.” It’s part of the DIY (“do it yourself”) computer culture. Instead of gutting and customizing your ride, you’re modifying your PC. Modder Richard Surroz sees himself as a kind of PC Picasso, or perhaps a Rodin. “I can’t paint, I can’t sculpt, but [...]
June 1, 2008
Devoted to Nano
The submicroscopic search for a better battery
Undergrad Anna Putnam is squirming. The interviewer has touched a raw nerve in the chemical engineering major. “You’re digging deeply into my life,” she says, shifting in her chair. Her confession comes with reluctance: “My first term at OSU, I struggled in math.” Pressed, she admits the worst: “I got a C in vector calculus.” [...]
January 23, 2008
Breaking Through
Researchers take it to the marketplace
When Larry Plotkin took a buy-out package from Hewlett-Packard in 2005, he aimed to start a new business in the mid-Willamette Valley. He was familiar with OSU research on transparent transistors, algae-generated biodiesel and microbial fuel cells. “This is world-class stuff,” he says. And he felt that the potential for new products based on OSU [...]
July 23, 2007
More Than Machines
TekBots bring students together
Educating tomorrow’s electrical engineers has come to this: Teamwork, creativity and ownership are as important as the principles of theory and design. All get rolled into a box that first-year Oregon State University students receive in their introduction to the field. Inside are circuit and charger boards, wheels, a steel roller ball and assorted electrical [...]
April 1, 2007
Growing Technology
From microbes to plants, OSU researchers are leveraging biological materials to develop a variety of new products. Here are some highlights: Cellulose Power Professor Michael Penner in the Department of Food Science and Technology is studying one of the holy grails of the bio-based fuel industry: the economical conversion of woody plant materials into ethanol [...]
February 1, 2007
Pressure’s On
High-strength building products
It was a great idea, just ahead of its time. More than 50 years ago, engineers came up with a way to increase the strength and stiffness of wood. By applying steam, heat and pressure, they increased strength by about 250 percent. Problem was, strong wood was in plentiful supply. So, except for some minor [...]
February 1, 2007
Medical Pioneer
At one time, Erin Rieke might have been hesitant to take risks, glad to let someone else step up. Hard to tell now. The 22-year-old senior in bioengineering from Tualatin, Oregon, has been doing extraordinary things for an undergraduate: culturing breast cancer cells, exposing them to controlled doses of radiation, learning how to make nanoparticles [...]
February 1, 2007
Small Miracles
Harnessing nanotechnology
Nanotechnology has arrived. No longer do we just have to imagine the benefits. Advertisers tout them in cosmetics, clothing, batteries, dental adhesives, paint and golf clubs. In 2004, nanotech consultant Lux Research, Inc., estimated the worldwide sale of products containing nanomaterials at $158 billion. And new products are on the horizon: medicines, sensors, filters and [...]
