The Southern Ohio Low Volume Experimental Road (SOLVER) is 5.4 miles of U.S. Route 50 in western Vinton County. It's also the state of Ohio's first low-volume, two-lane test road. Led by Russ Professor of Civil Engineering Shad Sargand, the Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment helped the Ohio Department of Transportation develop a research matrix to evaluate the performance of various mixes, materials, construction processes, and maintenance options — and then constructed the road with a stiff foundation that includes stabilized subgrade and dense graded granular base course. The $3.8 million project will serve southeastern Ohio as a facility for evaluating new materials and techniques for pavement suited for low traffic volumes.

Good computer engineers and computer scientists strive to create software and communication hardware that will work as fast and as efficiently as designed — as long as nothing unexpected happens. We all increasingly depend on computers and internet connections for daily life. What happens to them when power lines flicker or our network goes down? Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Gordon Stewart, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, is studying issues of provability, or how to know if software or a device will perform even when a problem occurs. The study will rethink how computers and computer networks are designed and arranged, so devices — and we — can continue working.

Increasing space communications bandwidth requirements, coupled with a growing number of satellites, are leading to spectrum interference — when many individuals try to use the same frequencies. This poses a major challenge to not just civil operations but defense missions. Trent Skidmore, senior research engineer with the Avionics Engineering Center, and fellow researchers at Wright State University, are collaborating with fellow experts across Ohio as part of a statewide effort for Wright Patterson Air Force Base and NASA Glenn Research Center to mitigate the issues. The project maximizes the use of Ohio's brain power while finding ways to make the space environment for civil, defense, and commercial sectors less congested and contested.

Most significant pavement damage is caused by motor vehicles, but horses and buggies affect roadways in a unique way, often causing rutting and occasionally fracturing asphalt on the most heavily used roads. The Ohio Department of Transportation asked Associate Professor of Civil Engineering Munir Nazzal to develop long-term and cost-effective solutions to minimize damage from the traditional Amish travel method of steel-wheeled, horse-drawn buggies. The main source of the damage? Horseshoes — specifically the calks, or cleat-like welds used to increase traction. Potential solutions, including two kinds of horseshoe modifications; polymer-based, screw-in horseshoe calks; and new asphalt mixtures that will be more resistant to rutting; are being tested in Holmes County, home to the state's largest Amish community.

In an area awash with acid mine drainage, OHIO faculty and students joined community members to break Perry County ground in December on an acid mine drainage remediation pilot-scale plant that will use the pollution to create paint pigments. Department of Civil Engineering Chair Guy Riefler and the School of Art and Design's John Sabraw, chair of painting and drawing, worked with Rural Action's Michelle Shively to build the facility at the John Altier Park in Corning, Ohio. It'll continuously treat the water in Corning for about a year, and the waste sludge will be used for paint pigment. As reported in Ingenuity's 2016-2017 issue, Gamblin Artist Colors of Portland, Oregon, has already produced 500 tubes of oil paint made from the pigment, co-branding them with the names of both parties as part of a trial run.