Research Activities

Long-term initiatives within ORNL's Sustainable Transportation Program commonly overlap the research areas of vehicle, energy, information, and infrastructure. These include:

To advance these initiatives and others, ORNL scientists and engineers are involved in an array of research activities concentrating on:
  • Advanced materials
  • Asset management
  • Batteries
  • Bioenergy
  • Combustion
  • Congestion
  • Connectivity
  • Duty cycles
  • Economic analysis
  • Electrification
  • Emissions
  • Energy delivery
  • Energy impact
  • Energy security
  • Energy storage
  • Energy sustainability
  • Environmental impact
  • Freight modes
  • Freight patterns
  • Fuel cells
  • Fuel economy
  • Heavy vehicle safety
  • Hybrid vehicles
  • Hydrogen
  • Infrastructure investment
  • Intelligent transportation
  • Land protection
  • Logistics
  • Low-cost carbon fiber
  • Lightweighting materials
  • Military transport
  • Packaging
  • Passenger modes
  • Passenger patterns
  • Petroleum/non-petroleum fuels
  • Policy and decision analysis
  • Population
  • Power electronics
  • Safety/security
  • Sensory technology
  • Supply chain management
  • Supply chain and life cycle analysis
  • Systems modeling and analysis
  • Tagging and tracking
  • Transportation system
    control & operations
  • Transportation system resiliency
  • Transit modes
  • Vehicle maintenance
  • Visualization

Highlights

ORNL strengthens DOE-funded clean vehicles team
ORNL researchers focus on puting more electric and hybrid vehicles on the road.

ORNL, Industry Collaborate in Advanced Battery Research
$6.2 million project on lithium ion battery production challenges.

ORNL to get Carbon Fiber Technology Center
DOE has allocated $34.7 million to establish the Carbon Fiber Technology Center at ORNL.

R&D 100 Awards
ORNL has won eleven R&D 100 Awards for transportation system advances.

Finding . . .