Unlike standard message boards, the TIPS system can actually predict how long drivers will be stuck in traffic near highway construction projects. The predictions allow drivers to take alternate routes and avoid long delays. Reducing congestion is important, because that improves highway safety. Ohio Eminent Scholar Ephraim Gutmark received funding and equipment from the Halliburton Company of Texas to establish a new laboratory which could make it easier and less expensive to drill for oil. The research will adapt hydraulic technology Gutmark developed for rocket engines to improve the performance of drill bits used in oil fields.
Drill bits can get stuck, break, or wear down under the tremendous strain of drilling for oil.
Better hydraulics would protect those expensive drill bits, and the drilling goes much faster. The laboratory will be completed later this year. Krantz headed a similar center while at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Membrane technologies are used in many industries including food processing, fuel cells, pharmaceuticals, paper products, and refining. Last year, van Ooij was honored for developing inexpensive metal coatings to replace toxic chromium.