Category: Engineering

AIMTech partnership develops unique treadmill as first medical device.

The Alliance for Innovative Medical Technology, a partnership between Southern Research and UAB, showed off the ResistX treadmill at the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual conference in Boston during early summer 2016.

ResistX is a unique force-induced treadmill designed with safety in mind and engineered for use in physical therapy and rehabilitation centers. It is the first treadmill to allow individuals recovering from neurological or physical disorders to exercise in a challenging treadmill environment to improve cardiovascular fitness and lower limb strength.

“ResistX is different from anything on the market, and represents a significant milestone for AIMTech and the physical therapy and rehab communities,” said Dr. Robert Hergenrother, director of AIMTech and Medical Technology Developments at Southern Research.

Southern Research, UAB team form Alliance for Innovative Medical Technology.

Building on its Alabama Drug Development Alliance and years of close collaboration, Southern Research and UAB launched the AIMTech venture to develop new medical devices to improve healthcare in the U.S. and around the world.

The strategic partnership combines the research and discovery expertise of Southern Research scientists and engineers and UAB biomedical engineers and clinicians. AIMTech seeks to create medical devices across five specializations: cardiology, orthopedics, ophthalmology, rehabilitative engineering, and trauma.

“Partnering with UAB on this initiative allows us to accelerate commercialization of medical technologies, improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, and generate economic development and growth,” Southern Research President and CEO Dr. Art Tipton said. “This is also an opportunity to develop a lucrative business unit that will potentially create a number of new companies and jobs within the rapidly-growing biomedical engineering industry.”

AIMTech seeks to invent the new medical devices, help raise venture capital, establish small medical device companies, and manage the clinical trial and FDA approval processes. Major medical device companies will manufacture and sell the devices.

$5.6 million engineering test facility opens on Oxmoor campus.

Rapid growth in Southern Research’s engineering business prompted the construction of a $5.6 million high-tech laboratory at the organization’s Engineering Research Campus in Birmingham.

The expansion allowed Southern Research to programs in airborne imaging systems, advanced materials,light-weight composite materials, and structural integrity research of large complex systems, such as aerospace vehicles.

Construction of the 19,000-square-foot building with three high-bay labs and two floors of offices was completed in July 2012.

When the Space Shuttle returned to flight after the Columbia accident, a special video recording system developed by Southern Research captured the launch.

The Airborne Imaging and Recording System (AIRS) captured video of Discovery’s July 26, 2005, launch from ranges of up to 20 nautical miles. The AIRS units, mounted in the nose of WB-57 aircraft, provided full-motion video of Discovery from lift-off to well beyond booster separation at 146,000 feet.

The system, developed with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, fulfilled a recommendation from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board that high-resolution video be taken of shuttle launches so that possible damage could be identified.

The AIRS turrets continue to be used to capture video of rocket launches and by a variety of Southern Research government clients.

A Southern Research engineering team participates in the high-level investigation of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident – and helps get the program back on track.

Columbia was destroyed during re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, following a 16-day scientific mission. An investigation showed that hot gases entered a hole in the leading edge on one of Columbia’s wings, destroying critical support structures and causing the spacecraft to break apart.

NASA again called in a Southern Research team led by John Koenig to determine the cause of the mission failure and model the event that caused the initial damage to the wing. The team also evaluated if the age of the carbon composite material enhanced the probability of failure and to develop approaches to repair the shuttle wing in space if similar damage occurred in the future.

Koening was honored by NASA and its space partners at a 2016 ceremony marking his retirement from Southern Research after nearly 40 years.

A unique device developed by Southern Research helped get Space Shuttle Endeavour on with its mission after a mishap in November 2002.

Endeavour was poised to launch from Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center when higher-than-allowable oxygen levels were detected in the orbiter’s midbody. While replacing a fatigued oxygen hose, a platform bumped the robotic arm in the shuttle’s cargo bay.

NASA officials called Southern Research engineers David Stewart and Jim Tucker and asked them to report to Kennedy Space Center the next day and bring Southern Research’s patented UltraSpec ultrasonic inspection equipment to examine the manipulator arm. This technology was uniquely capable of collecting data about the robotic arm’s composite-to-metal interfaces.

Inspection of the arm was made in the cargo bay of Endeavour on the launch pad, and Southern Research’s equipment and personnel were then immediately flown to Toronto to meet with the arm’s manufacturer to evaluate results.

Three days after the call to Southern Research was made, Endeavour was approved for launch and blasted into orbit on Nov. 23, 2002.

Photo shows Jim Tucker, left, and David Stewart inspecting cargo in the shuttle bay of Endeavour using the UltraSpec technology

Southern Research assisted in the development of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in 2018 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor of Hubble. Before Northrop Grumman secured the prime contract on the project in 2002, Southern Research’s Nondestructive Characterization Group worked with team members Orbital ATK and others to develop enabling technology for the 6.5- meter space telescope on NASA’s next great observatory.

Novel interferometer-based metrology techniques pioneered at Southern Research were integral to the winning proposal and went on to be used to test over six thousand individual material components for the observatory, in addition to major substructures.

The Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, was launched after Southern Research had helped perfect the platform’s periscope design.

Chandra’s periscope is a critical component of the telescope’s pointing mechanism and goes from the center of the X-ray mirrors to the tracking camera. To function properly, the periscope must remain thermally stable despite temperature changes.

Southern Research developed the thermal stability test for the periscope that determined the pointing accuracy of the X-ray observatory. Several test campaigns helped material and optical designers refine the periscope design.

Southern Research opens new state-of-the-art Engineering Research Center.

Southern Research dedicated its new Engineering Research Center at Birmingham’s Oxmoor Park on Oct. 9, 1992, in front of a crowd that numbered 200 people. Alabama Gov. Guy Hunt, who was one of them, said: “The growth and progress here at Oxmoor bodes well for the future of Birmingham and our entire state.”

At the new center, engineers conducted high-temperature evaluation of carbon-carbon and other advanced composite materials in defense and aerospace applications.

High temperature testing facility tapped for Hall of Fame.

Southern Research’s High Temperature Materials Evaluation Facility was inducted into the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame in February 1991 at a ceremony in Tuscaloosa. The facility is used to evaluate materials such as carbon-carbon composites, graphite and ceramic for use in aircraft, missiles and space vehicles under extreme conditions.

The facility’s furnaces are capable of operating at temperatures reaching 5,500 degrees Fahrenheit, and mechanical and thermal equipment at the facility determine how materials function under different conditions.

The unique facility made Southern Research the primary source of research in the characterization of high temperature materials for NASA, the Department of Defense, and many aerospace companies and component producers.

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