News - Ray W. Herrick Laboratories - Purdue University

The future of electrified transportation isn’t just consumer vehicles. Tractor-trailers carry nearly 72% of the country’s freight, so innovations on that scale have the potential to make huge strides for sustainability worldwide. That’s why Purdue University researchers have teamed up with Wabash, the largest trailer manufacturer in the country, to investigate an experimental trailer that recaptures its own electricity from vibrations, heat, and airflow.

What if components in aircraft could morph in response to their external conditions, much like a bird changes the shape of its wings? And what if those components could function like an octopus arm, operating independently of a central control system? Inspired by these natural phenomena, a Purdue research team is developing morphing systems for hypersonic vehicles that respond to their environment.

A team of Herrick students was awarded 2nd Place at the 2023-2024 Jump Into STEM Challenge in December. The 2023–2024 JUMP into STEM Challenge asked college student teams from across the country to develop ideas to optimize energy utilization for affordable thermal energy storage, to access high-quality and affordable envelope remediation or construction technologies, and to develop an innovative solution for reducing carbon emissions from US buildings.

Purdue University researchers are using machine learning to train a robot to recognize a jumbled pile of items, locate the one item it needs, and retrieve it in the most efficient way. It’s one small step to creating resilient and versatile robots that can assist astronauts in maintaining future extraterrestrial habitats on the Moon, on Mars, or in deep space.

Eckhard A. Groll, the William E. and Florence E. Perry Head of Mechanical Engineering and Reilly Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has received the F. Paul Anderson Award from ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers), the society's highest honor.

Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and ClimateWorks Foundation have made awards to seven cross-disciplinary teams of early career scientists in the fourth and final year of Scialog: Negative Emissions Science, an initiative aiming to advance the underlying science needed to make technologies to capture and utilize greenhouse gases globally scalable.

Purdue University researchers have created an IoT software platform called MySmartE that incentivizes people to use energy-efficiency programs developed by government and industry.

On October 19 and 20 the Industrial Advisory Committee met at Purdue University's Herrick Laboratories.

Davide Ziviani is leading a $3 million project from the Department of Energy to investigate high temperature heat pumps, which have the potential to reduce energy use in many industries.

Professor Xiulin Ruan's research into the "Whitest Paint" makes the NBC Nightly News