Engineering Out Loud

How do you quickly calculate a worker's radiation skin dose in the event of exposure? VARSKIN--maintained and updated at Oregon State--is one of the main computer codes used by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and undergrad Logan Anspach's peer-reviewed paper examines how it stacks up against other tools.

How do you prove a country tested a nuclear weapon, and who's keeping an eye on this stuff? Researchers at Oregon State and University of Michigan are part of the crew doing this work.

How are Oregon State researchers impacting the apps on your phone? Danny Dig and his team have been improving software for companies like Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Boeing, and Google for years by developing tools that find and fix bugs. Dig is an associate professor of computer science at Oregon State and an adjunct professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

How do you help reduce risk in the nation's most dangerous occupation? Researchers at Oregon State University are partnering with Blount International to help make timber harvesting equipment safer. To understand a specific type of accident that occurs in the field, they've designed and built a machine to recreate it in the safety of a shipping container.

• Video of a timber harvester in action
• Oregon Mechanical Timber Harvesting Handbook [PDF]
• Blount International website
• ATAMI website

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-5-partners-research-part-two/partnering-make-timber-harvesting-safer-s5e4

How do you harness the energy of the ocean? Oregon State alumni Alex Hagmuller and Max Ginsburg cofounded Aquaharmonics to try and figure it out: starting with a wave energy device prototype they tested in a bathtub. Today, they're backed by millions of dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy, partnering with Sandia National Laboratories, and are on course for ocean testing with a full-size wave energy converting buoy.

Can you build skyscrapers or other massive structures with wood? Mass timber buildings are changing skylines and changing the way engineers and architects think about building big with wood. They go up faster than steel and concrete. They cost less. They're made from sustainable resources, and they're getting taller and taller.

How do you talk to a robot? How about 250 robots? Julie A. Adams, professor of computer science, describes her research on human-robot interaction and the benefits and challenges of drone swarms.

Cyberattacks are getting more frequent, bigger, and more destructive. New research at Oregon State University aims to stop hackers by combining the muscle power of artificial intelligence with the brains of cybersecurity experts. The project is led by Galois Inc. and includes collaborators at University of Edinburgh and Synaptiq.

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-4-partners-research/collaboration-catch-hackers-s4e6

How can we prepare most effectively for the Cascadia subduction zone earthquake? An interactive website called O-HELP, developed by Oregon State researchers, zooms in to any point in Oregon and displays the various risks, giving planning agencies, utilities, and individuals a head start.

• O-HELP
• Cascadia Lifelines Program
• Living with Earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest
• Preparing for the Cascadia Earthquake

How do you forecast and model huge waves in the open ocean? As part of the National Marine Renewable Energy Center, researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Washington are modeling and forecasting extreme waves to help inform wave energy technology.