Volume 9, Number 3 • May/June 2001

Wafer “Wiggle” Going Places

NASA’s piezoelectric wafer technology has now been commercialized, sparking a broad range of potential applications in industry and scientific marketplaces. Application possibilities include the development of smaller heart pumps, more compact audio speakers, robotic “bugs” that walk, controls for airflow in automobile engines and quieter aircraft engines.

NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, invented and patented the Thin-Layer Composite-Unimorph Ferroelectric Driver and Sensor (originally called THUNDER®, a trademark later registered by Face International Corporation). This technology is also known as Prestressed Piezoelectric Composites (PPC).

Several years ago, NASA researchers were exploring the well-known phenomenon exhibited by piezoelectric materials, which generate mechanical movement when subjected to a voltage. Such a property can be applied in electronics, optics, noise cancellation, pumps, valves, suppression of irregular motion and a variety of other fields. This technology can also be used as a sensor in such applications as microphones, non-destructive testing, and vibration testing.

A remarkable feature of these devices is their ability to provide inordinately large mechanical output displacements, as high as 30 times the thickness of the device itself. That “wiggle” is an order of magnitude greater than existing devices operating in the same frequency range. What’s more, these composite piezoelectric structures are tougher than current commercially available piezoelectric materials. The revolutionary devices have greater mechanical load capacity than conventional piezoelectric disks and other piezoelectric wafers, and can easily be produced at a relatively low cost, lending themselves well to mass production. The fabrication process for these devices is readily controllable, resulting in highly uniform production.

NASA granted licenses to two Virginia-based companies: Face International Corporation of Norfolk, and Virginia Power and Electric Company of Richmond.

Face International has successfully commercialized its line of THUNDER® piezoelectric wafers. While offering piezoelectric actuators and sensors as standard products, Face International also sells “made-to-order” wafers, integrating customers’ special configurations to fulfill the custom needs of clients.

Face International has exclusive license to develop actuator systems suitable for shaking concrete and processing other slurried materials. The company owns patents for using controlled acoustic energy (i.e., vibration or sound) to achieve the rapid setting of freshly poured concrete. The company also owns patents for THUNDER®-based pumps, switches and circuit breakers.

Face International is selling a variety of THUNDER® devices and is now capable of producing these and similar devices by the thousands on a monthly basis.

Development of Virginia Power’s NASDRIVTM devices is currently underway. The company is authorized to sublicense in a wide range of applications, excluding concrete-related applications.

For more information, contact Al Lawver of Face International at 757/624-2121, alawver@faceco.com. Please mention you read about it in Innovation.

“Smarter” Highways Mean Safer Highways Imaging Systems Technology, Inc. (IST), and its partner, GSYS Corporation, are working with NASA Glenn Research Center to design and market a “smart highway” collision avoidance system that can detect obstructions in a tractor-trailer’s blind spots. A system to detect objects in the blind spot of a tractor-trailer could save millions of lives on the nation’s highways. GSYS President Christopher Adams has invented and patented a collision avoidance system known as CoverHaul 18. The product utilizes the pre-existing trailer wiring as a means of powerline communication. This multiplexing technology allows for the exchange of power and data between tractor-trailers via the standard electrical connector. IST served as the specialist to design the sensors for the bumper systems. “GSYS had the concept and the intellectual property, and we had the development capabilities,” said Carol Wedding, IST president. Used together, the technologies have the potential to save millions of lives on the nation’s highways. Potential users of the Collision Avoidance System include the trucking industry, military vehicles and bus companies. IST and GSYS are working with Glenn to develop a line of “Smart Highway Products” centered around collision avoidance. The companies teamed as one of the five winners of the first NASA Glenn Garrett Morgan Commercialization Initiative (GMCI) Commercialization Awards. For more information, contact Gynelle Steele at NASA Glenn Research Center: gynelle.steele@grc.nasa.gov. Please mention you read about it in Innovation.