伊利诺伊大学香槟分校

The department is a leader in the application of engineering principles to solve problems of agricultural production and utilization and to improve the quality of life. Specific research projects are continually changing to meet new challenges and opportunities. Faculty are conducting research in all major areas of agricultural engineering and technical systems management including the areas outlined below.

Agricultural Safety

Research involves model programs for collection of data related to farm injuries and illnesses, redesign of on-farm structures and management procedures to reduce risk of airborne contaminants to worker injuries, development of sensors on off-road vehicles for human detection and safety, utilization of behavioral psychology models in the prediction and analysis of agricultural safety behaviors and aiding farmers with physical disabilities.

Bioenvironmental Engineering

Research involves environmental control for biological systems, indoor air quality, control of airborne contaminate emissions, environmental protection, animal response to environment, light frame structural design, and energy from biomass.

Food and Bioprocess

Research involves bioprocess modifications to develop new food coproducts with high nutritive or pharmaceutical value, to reduce food processing plant waste streams, and to evaluate improved starch characteristics of milled grains. State-of-the-art separation technologies, such as microfiltration, are being applied to conventional corn processes to give better products while gaining improved process efficiencies.

Grain Quality and Properties

Research involves developing improved corn wet and dry milling processes, dry-grind ethanol processes which remove the germ first (Quick Germ), determination of starch viscosity with rapid visco analyzer (RVA), drying effects on quality of grains, detection of extractable starch using near-infrared spectroscopy, measurement of fermentable starch, distiller’s dried grains (DDGS), and fatty acids, amino acids, and isoflavones in soybeans using FT-NIR and other physiochemical quality tests for grains and oilseeds.