Web Handling Research Center

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The Web Handling Research Center at Oklahoma State University has been a very viable and successful I/UCRC since 1985. The Center's research concentrates on "Webs", which are materials that are manufactured and processed in continuous flexible, strip form, and includes paper, plastics, textiles, metals, and composites. Web technology is used in almost every continuous process industry in some way. The Center's research efforts are in the areas of: 1) longitudinal dynamics; 2) lateral dynamics; 3) winding and unwinding; 4) wrinkling; 5) measurement of physical properties, and 6) control strategies. The Center has grown to 15 corporate sponsors, and has received a grant of $900,000 over six years from the Noble Foundation for equipment and graduate fellowship support. The Center has used its Industrial Advisory Board very effectively over its lifetime to help define and direct its research, and recently began to concentrate efforts on technology transfer. These efforts have included seminars in sponsors' plants and a live interactive satellite-delivered teleconference delivered to the Center sponsors. The Center is clearly an effective I/UCRC Center and meets all the requirements for the program. The Program Manager recommends that Oklahoma State University be awarded $33,000 for the first year of a three-year, Self-Sufficient Partnership for Research, $8,000 for the support of an evaluator in the Center for one year, and $10,000 for the support of two female undergraduate students under the "Funding for Support for Woman, Minority, and Disabled Engineering Research Assistants, for a total of $51,000. Near the end of each 12-month period, the Program Manager and/or the Division Director of the Engineering Centers Division will review the progress of the Center on a number of criteria, including the following: 1) extent to which University/Industry interaction and collaboration is developing; 2) extent to which the support base for the Center is expanding; 3) extent to which robust research program is developing. If the review is satisfactory, the Program Manager will recommend support of the next period of this continuing grant.