Automotive

John W. Lambert, from Mechanicsburg, built the first gas-powered, single-cylinder auto. Alexander Winton, from Cleveland, made the first commercial sale. Charles Kettering and team invented the first self-starter. Today, Ohio’s network of automotive companies, research resources and organizations are designing, testing and working to deploy smart mobility initiatives, vehicles and technology.

Enhancing Pavement Engineering

Simulation of cracking concrete slabs

Most American highways are constructed as a Portland cement concrete (PCC) slabs that are poured and finished on a layered roadbed. Such pavement structures are subjected to millions of applications of traffic wheel-loads, as well as numerous cycles of temperature and moisture variations, and eventually succumb to cracking. 

Chen developing improved turbomachinery simulation software

Turbomachinery, such as that found in compressors and turbines, is instrumental in today's aeronautic, automotive, marine, space and industrial power generation. To achieve the most efficient propulsion and power systems, engine designers must understand the physics of very complex air-flow fields produced within multiple stages of constantly rotating rotors and stators.

Testing battery traits in hybrid vehicles

The power needs for extended all-electric operation of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) require much more on-board energy than the lower-density energy typically provided by nickel-metal-hydride batteries. The current engineering solution is to link several parallel strings of lithium-ion battery cells within a battery module and to link several modules into larger battery packs.

Computer models predict traffic accident ‘hot spots’ for Ohio

An Ohio State University statistics expert used the powerful machines of the Ohio Supercomputer Center to design a program that identifies traffic accident hotspots on Ohio’s roadways. Christopher Holloman, Ph.D., produced color-coded computer models to tell state troopers where fatal and injury accidents, especially those from speeding and drunk driving, are most likely to occur.

Building fast green cars

Buckeye Bullet 2, the world’s first land-speed race research vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells, is designed and built by students at The Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research.

Their goal? To beat the U.S. land speed record for its category set by the first Buckeye Bullet in 2004.

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