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| The introduction of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics' wind tunnel in 1922 set the stage for the transfer of aerospace research-derived technologies to other industries. ae |
For over 40
years, Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia,
has been leading the way to beneficial partnerships between industry,
academia, and the Government. From the opening of the first National Advisory
Committee on Aeronautics' wind tunnel at Langley Memorial Aeronautical
Laboratory in 1922, the facility now known as Langley Research Center
has been consistently involved in the dissemination of aerospace research-derived
technologies to the Nation. While playing a pivotal role in the development
of aircraft for defense and commercial uses through the 1930s, 40s, and
50s, the Center also was instrumental in the successful new assignments
for the "Space Race" that
the newly reorganized National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) was tasked with in the 1960s and 1970s.
NASA's Industrial Applications Program, later renamed the Technology Utilization Program (TUP), was started in 1962 with the plan to foster greater utilization of beneficial, new innovations beyond their initial aerospace applications. The Langley Technology Utilization Office, formed in 1964, was the first organization at the Center tasked with the transfer of aerospace technology to commercial industry. Increased emphasis on the importance of technology transfer and commercialization resulted in the formation of the Technology Application Group (TAG) in 1994. TAG was charged with proactively improving the effectiveness of the Langley Commercialization Program. This organization has been known as the Technology Commercialization Program Office since 1999, and has been instrumental in many successful transfers of technology to industry. Industries that have benefited from the transfers run the gamut from medical, transportation, construction, and manufacturing, to energy generation, and even recreation.
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| From the runway to the roadway, grooved surfaces in concrete significantly improve wet weather traction for stopping and steering. |
One of the TUP's most notable contributions was to the transportation safety industry. Most drivers are familiar with grooved highway surfaces, but few realize that these grooves were the result of Langley aeronautical research. This safety enhancement concept was developed through the hydroplaning program that began at Langley in 1962 with the goal of improving the control of aircraft touching down during wet weather. Surface grooves in concrete significantly improve wet weather traction for stopping and steering. It was easy for Langley engineers to see the need for the benefits of their research in public roadway systems. As a testament to the TUP's work, every state in the Nation today has miles of grooved pavement to enhance the safety of its roadways during wet weather. Also, research shows that the grooves increase the life of the pavement by 5 to 10 percent, decreasing the frequency of expensive repaving projects. Grooves on potentially slippery surfaces also benefit pedestrian areas, industrial factories, pools, and playgrounds. Grooved surfaces may affect people more than any other NASA spinoff application to date.
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Langley's 737 flying laboratory flew over 130 missions into extreme weather situations, learning how to hunt invisible wind shear elements 2 to 3 miles ahead of the aircraft. |
Another Langley
technology that contributes to the safety of
aircraft landing is the airborne wind shear detection system that was
developed and refined at the Center. Wind shear occurs when invisible
bodies of air are traveling in different directions to each other at
different speeds. When an aircraft encounters this disturbance, the
pilots can have severe difficulty in correcting the resulting changes
in flight path, particularly when they are close to the ground for landing.
This invisible aviation hazard is so dangerously unpredictable that
about 26 aircraft crashed, resulting in over 500 fatalities between
1964 and 1985. After a Delta Airlines jetliner was brought down by wind
shear near Dallas in August 1985, it was evident that something had
to be done to provide pilots with greater advance warning of wind shear
situations. The Federal Aviation Administration and Langley combined
forces to develop better wind shear detection capabilities for airlines
and the military. The first challenge was to learn how to model and
predict the phenomenon. Langley developed the F-factor metric that is
now the standard for determining if the airflow ahead of an aircraft
is dangerous wind shear. The next step was to determine what sort of
detector was the most effective in detecting the wind shear 10 seconds
to 1minute ahead of a flying aircraft. Langley's 737 flying laboratory
flew over 130 missions into extreme weather situations, learning how
to hunt the invisible hazards 2 to 3 miles ahead of the aircraft. The
resulting technological advances have enabled aircraft to read the speed
and direction of invisible particles of water vapor or dust in the wind
and provide pilots the necessary advance warning
of wind shear conditions. Doppler radar-based systems were also developed
based on the Langley research. This type of system has been commercially
certified by several companies and was first flown on commercial aircraft
by Continental Airlines less than 2 years after the Langley Wind Shear
Program declared "mission accomplished!" and
concluded testing.
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| Langley's Boeing 737 research aircraft is fitted with a Doppler radar wind shear detection system that sends a beam well ahead of the airplane to detect microbursts, evidenced by sudden large changes in raindrop velocities. |
As a result of this pioneering work, aircraft manufacturers throughout the world today are mandated to supply new airliners with wind shear detection systems as standard safety equipment.
Not to be
outdone, Langley materials researchers have been
developing revolutionary materials over the past 40 years as well. Some
materials, such as the colorless polyimide, have been qualified for
use in space flight. Others, such as the rp-46 high-temperature (600°F)
polymer, are used in lightweight bearings for the Boeing 777. With new
materials constantly entering commercial use, it is difficult to cull
a single one for consideration. If sales figures are used as a measure
of significance, a Langley-developed, flexible, high-temperature adhesive
stands out from the pack. The polyimide adhesive is used on flexible
circuit boards produced by one of the Nation's largest circuit board
manufacturers, the Rogers Corporation. The flexible circuits are used
in many applications, but primarily in high-speed computer disk drives.
This advance in adhesive technology has resulted in cumulative sales
of over $135 million in less than 10 years and is expected to produce
a total of over $300 million prior to patent expiration.
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Langley’s high-temperature, polyimide adhesive is used to bond film to copper foil conductor materials in flexible circuits produced by one of the Nation’s
largest circuit board manufacturers.
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As advances are made in the new fields of materials,
such as shape memory materials, morphing technology, and nanotechnology,
Langley plans to partner with companies much earlier than it had done
so in the past. This will ease the transition from government development
to industry manufacture and speed up the prototype to manufacture cycle.
It is expected that NASA will also benefit from the resulting acceleration
in technology development and the reduced costs of technologies as
they progress from exclusively high-tech applications to broad commercial
uses. c
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