Sept. 5, 2003
Virginia Campus Has a New Place to Crash
Researchers in New 80,000 Square-Foot Building to Conduct
Crash Tests, Other Safety Analysis
By Greg
Licamele
GWs National Crash Analysis Center
(NCAC) will build a new home at the Virginia Campus in the form of a $14
million, 80,000 square-foot facility recently approved by the Universitys
Board of Trustees. The new building represents the the worlds first
university-based transportation safety and research center with a sophisticated
crash-test facility. The ceremonial ground breaking, scheduled for Sept.
10, will be part of the NCACs 10-year anniversary celebration.
Nabih E. Bedewi, professor of engineering and applied science and NCAC
director, said this research facility, slated to open in 2005, will have
two components a two-story building housing the NCAC automotive
crash test barrier, laboratories, and offices and a hangar-type portion
where highway and infrastructure safety testing will be conducted indoors.
If you go to a standard crash-test facility like the ones in Detroit
that work for the car companies, they are set up for compliance work and
not designed for research, Bedewi said. We thought we needed
a research facility that allows us to run high-quality tests with a high
level of instrumentation, but without the enormous costs.
As part of GWs strategic initiative for academic excellence, the
University selected transportation safety and security as one of seven
areas for additional resources devoted to partnerships, faculty and graduate
assistants. The NCAC is part of GWs comprehensive Transportation
Research Institute, chartered in 1997, which also includes the Center
for Intelligent Systems Research, as well as aviation and maritime research
activities.
The transportation initiative is also a major component in one of
three focused areas of academic excellence in the School of Engineering
and Applied Science, said Dean Timothy W. Tong. The decision
to build the crash-test facility will undoubtedly propel our transportation
program to new heights of accomplishments and recognition.
First conceived in 1996, the NCAC facility will build upon existing partnerships
with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as well as automotive companies.
This will be the crown jewel of the TRI and will stimulate interest
and support from the intellectual community, said John S. Wilson,
executive dean of the Virginia Campus. It will also be a magnet
for key officials in industry and government, both of whom often seek
an unbiased testing site and a consolidated base of expertise in the transportation
field.
Wilson said despite a struggling national economy and cutbacks in higher
education, GWs Board of Trustees sees the distinctively high value
of this transportation enterprise and expects a positive return on this
strategic investment.
We are expanding, and that makes a statement about the power of
our transportation research group, Wilson said. The timing
could not be better for us to be a resource for industry, government and
academia.
Bedewi points out that in its first 10 years, NCAC generated $18 million
in funding from government and industry. Currently, the center has $21
million in contracts to be expended in the next five years with more funds
anticipated from the Department of Transportation and the automotive industry.
In the past six months alone, NCAC has received more than $5 million from
Ford Motor Co. and Hyundai-Kia.
Bedewi and his team have worked to bridge the gaps among FHWA, NHTSA and
car companies as all parties work on different, yet related topics. Through
objective crash test data, computer simulations and graduate student internships
in government and industry, NCAC has evolved into a world-class center
engaging in unbiased research.
When we first started, the mission was to create a center that addresses
issues important to both agencies, Bedewi explained. FHWA
deals with highways and all devices along the roadways; NHTSA deals with
the cars. The two agencies never really jointly looked at the problems
from both perspectives, despite the fact that many crashes do involve
the interaction of the cars and the road systems. So we came up with the
term solving the total safety problem. The biggest success
has been the transformation of the center over the last 10 years to become
a place that has a critical mass of experts in various fields in automotive
and highway safety.
In addition to new NCAC test facilities, its crash film library, high
performance computing laboratory and vehicle modeling research will move
into the new building.
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
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Related Links
GW's
Common Wealth of Research
Rendering
of New Facility
National
Crash Analysis Center
Federal
Highway Administration
National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Turner-Fairbank
Highway Research Center
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