Giant Vanderbilt Engineeering Lab Offically Opening
264 views · Published 13 August 2014 · 1:45 · Indexed 6 November 2026
Channel: Vanderbilt University · 2014 · Education
Take an ordinary university engineering laboratory and supersize it. The result is something like the Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability (LASIR). At 20,000 square feet, the new lab was too big to fit on campus, so it is located in the MetroCenter office park.
Within its cavernous confines is the 140-foot airframe of a Super Stallion helicopter, a Humvee and a wind tunnel the size of a small house designed to test wind turbines. The massive pieces of hardware are being used to develop either detection systems that can spot early warning signals of failure in these large, complicated machines or advanced control systems that can improve their efficiency and reliability.
“We work in three basic areas: security, energy and manufacturing,” says lab director Doug Adams, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, who moved to Vanderbilt from Purdue this year. His research is supported by the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines and he partners with several defense contractors and equipment manufacturers.
The LASIR Lab is unusual in another way. It is set up with demonstrations and interactive video displays designed to explain the research going on there to visitors.
To learn more about Vanderbilt, visit http://www.vanderbilt.edu.
