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| FLC Midwest Region Quarterly Newsletter - Fall 2006 |
AFRL Defines Human Test Criteria for Homeland Defense Rescue Basket
Like eggs nestled in a vintage wire egg basket, evacuees huddle against the periphery of the Heli-Basket, an open-air metal container that hangs beneath a helicopter to ferry disaster victims out of harm’s way.
“With this basket, you put it on the roof, load 15 people up in a matter of minutes and get them out of there,” said John Plaga, a research aerospace engineer with the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Human Effectiveness Directorate, Biosciences and Protection Division, Biomechanics Branch. Read more
Consortium Research Fellowship Gives Students Head Start in Real World
Engineering and science students often face the same predicament as other novice job seekers—today’s high-tech employers want new hires with experience, but students and recent graduates can’t get experience until someone hires them.
At the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Human Effectiveness Directorate (AFRL/HE), where researchers routinely conquer difficult technical challenges, leaders are merging academic theory with on-the-job experience to overcome this employment paradox. Read more
Sensors Use Times of Flight to Measure Flow Velocities
Thin-film sensors for measuring flow velocities in terms of times of flight are undergoing development. These sensors are very small and can be mounted flush with surfaces of airfoils, ducts, and other objects along which one might need to measure flow. These sensors also can be mounted on small struts protruding from such surfaces to acquire velocity measurements at various distances from the surfaces for the purpose of obtaining boundary-layer flow-velocity profiles. These sensors are related to, but not the same as, hot-wire anemometers. Read more
| Producing Quality Lumber and Pulp from Forest Thinnings
A recent focus of research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) has been finding high-value uses for forest thinnings to offset the cost of expensive, but necessary, treatments that improve forest health and decrease the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Ironically, the availability of pulpwood from public and private lands in the western United States is diminishing, and the pulp and paper industry has become increasingly reliant on the availability of residuals from sawmill operations.
A team of FPL researchers may have found a way to simultaneously address both of these forestry-related issues. Read more
New Superalloys Significantly Reduce Weight of Aircraft Turbine Rotors
Several recently formulated nickel-based superalloys have been developed with excellent high-temperature creep resistance at lower densities than those of currently used nickel-based superalloys. These alloys are the latest products in a continuing effort to develop alloys with even greater strength-to-weight ratios that are suitable for use in the turbine blades of aircraft engines. Mass densities of turbine blades exert a significant effect on the overall weight of aircraft. Read more
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Cindy Wesolowski
Regional Coordinator
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Letter from the Regional Coordinator
We’ve got a great program shaping up for our joint regional meeting with the Southeast Region this October. On Wednesday, October 25, we’ll hear about recent EPA technology transfer efforts. We’ll also have presentations from startups that successfully commercialized laboratory technologies, and a presentation about one of the Air Force’s educational outreach programs. Wednesday night’s networking program at the Hermitage promises to be both entertaining and informative. Read more
Upcoming Conferences and Events
- Future Technologies Conference II
- SAE Convergence 2006
- Tech Forum – RFID: The Evolution of This Revolution
- SAE DOD Maintenance Symposium & Exhibition
- FLC Midwest/Southeast Joint Regional Meeting
- 2006 DOE Opportunity Forum
- SSTI Transforming Regional Economies
- 2006 Fall National SBIR/STTR Conference
- International Conference on Nanotechnology Occupational and Environmental Health & Safety: Research to Practice
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