CCEFP opens funding to new universities

As it aims to continue its growth, The Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power (CCEFP) is currently reviewing funding proposals for 10 new research projects for the period July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2018.

The CCEFP is opening funding for the first time ever to universities outside the original seven research universities that began the organization in 2006. (See more on the organization’s history here). Now that the 10-year National Science Foundation grant has been fulfilled, the CCEFP hopes to attract more researchers and universities to its mission of changing the way fluid power is researched and taught.

The research projects the CCEFP is reviewing are organized in three thrusts that achieve the following societal benefits: creation of new fluid power technology that, with improved efficiency, will significantly reduce petroleum consumption, energy use and pollution; with improved effectiveness, will make fluid power clean, quiet and safe for its millions of users; with improved compactness, will exploit its attributes in a new generation of human scale devices and equipment.

Top strategic priorities include:

increasing energy efficiency of fluid power components and systems
improving and applying the energy storage capabilities of fluid power components and systems
reducing the environmental impact of fluid power components and systems (lowering noise, eliminating leaks)
improving the reliability of fluid power components and systems (increasing up-time, reducing maintenance, making fluid power safe and easy to use)
reducing the size of fluid power while maintaining or increasing power output
building “smart” fluid power components and systems (ones that perform self-diagnostics and troubleshooting and that integrate easily with plug-and-play functionality)
focusing on emerging manufacturing technologies (coatings, additive manufacturing, surface treatments)

Proposals are currently being reviewed and recipients will be announced February 15, 2016. Accepted projects will be detailed in our March 2016 issue.

Kim Stelson, CCEFP Director, said that each of the proposal grants will receive $80,000 for two years, totaling $160,000, to cover the costs of a single graduate student, a small portion of the professor’s salary and modest travel, supplies and equipment costs.

“This provides an opportunity for any researcher in the United States to become active with us,” Stelson said. “We are casting a wide net to attract the best talent.”

Stelson said that while this new funding opportunity is smaller—originally, the CCEFP began with 24 projects and 10 test beds—he said the organization will build from this new beginning, and “increase it as we go forward, through a combination of increased government and increased industry support.”

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