Collegiate Times

In an effort to consolidate facilities and boost energy and environmental research, a growing priority and research topic at Virginia Tech, the school will be building a new Modeling and Simulation Center on 200 acres of land in Halifax County, a county bordering North Carolina about three hours southwest of Blacksburg.

This economic revitalization project aims to bring business to rural Virginia communities.

In addition to the rural Virginia research, the project will also have an international focus and provide a large area for advanced research.

"We are very optimistic. The initiative looks promising and there are already some companies that have expressed interest," said Ted Settle, director of the Office of Economic Development.

This center will research and experiment with new technologies at the request of individual clients.

Researchers at the center expect that it will support mainly engineering firms.

"One of the goals of this initiative will be to attract corporations to this community to revitalize Southside Virginia," said Carole Cameron Inge, coordinator for the VT Modeling and Simulation Initiative.

The facility will measure 60,000 square feet and be highly secured.

The project is similar in design to VT-CAVE, an Automatic Virtual Environment used as a tool for scientific visualization.

"Imagine an IMAX theater. These virtual environments are similar, but they use data," Inge said.

The focus of the center's studies will be on ground, water, air, soil, and current technological issues concerning the environment. There will also be energy projects, such as biomass and switch-grass research.

The center has already begun to schedule research projects. One of its first projects for the US Department of Energy will involve a certain type of nuclear reactor.

The Conservation Management Institute and the Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center managed through Old Dominion University has partnered with VT Outreach and International Affairs to work on the initiative.

"We hope that there will be a mutual benefit for this center and CMI. We'll help sell its projects, provide environmental experts, and they will help us do a better job and hopefully get more grants for research," said Tom Inge, project associate with the Conservation Management Institute.

Virginia Tech groups met last week to discuss the project, and equipment will be ordered this week.

The new Modeling and Simulation Initiative will be an editorializing effort to take the scattered technologies here at Tech and bring them together.

 "This new technology adds a whole new factor. The environment field is growing and this will definitely be a useful tool," Inge said.

The budget for the project will start at $2.7 million, which will cover the initial costs of leadership, labor and equipment. Most of the labor involved will be those who do the research for contracts with corporations.

The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission, an agency that works to stimulate economic growth in formerly tobacco-dependent communities, gave Virginia Tech Outreach and International Affairs a grant of $1.2 million in hopes of jumpstarting economic transformation in Southern Virginia.

The contribution amounted to about 35 percent of the total budget for the initiative.

 "Our focuses are twofold: one is to enhance the economic health of Halifax County, Virginia, and the other is to enhance the university's presence in Modeling and Simulation in the state. Virginia Tech has a lot of intellectual strength, and we are just finding ways to better harness it," Settle said.