Members set the consortium's research agenda by presenting industrial problems to faculty, reviewing their research proposals, and choosing those that best meet their specific needs. Projects typically span one to two years and seed further work funded from other sources. Project areas include developing management tools for environmentally conscious manufacturing assessment, designing new industrial processes, optimizing manufacturing scheduling and layout, and others. Human postures and the contours, deformations, and support forces of people interacting with seats are measured and modeled to better design and evaluate seating products. The research involves the mechanical and microstructural analysis of tissue samples and of objects being designed to interact with the body.
Research is performed using finite element analysis and computer simulations.
Funding comes from both government health research proposals and from industry grants to improve or validate their product designs. Research is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Aeronautic and Space Administration, the National Institute for Science and Technology, the National Science Foundation, and General Motors Corporation. Topics of study include flame spread, fire extinguishment, soot formation in burners, the burning of composites, the influences of radiation and combustion interaction, microgravity combustion research, automobile fires, basic flame theory, and engine research. New modeling, computational, simulation, and visualization methods are applied to practical problems, with an emphasis on automotive applications. These include advanced tools for engineering simulations and design, methods for structural analysis and optimization of structural components, and computational tools for design of materials used in structural thermal systems.