Pamela Gregg – UDRI (University of Dayton Research Institute)

Announcements

Tom Novak, co-chair of Avenue of Flags, announced that starting 9/2/2020, 2,884 flags will be delivered for Labor Day. Last week, Diane Arehart posted on the CNO Facebook page and 20 new subscriptions were received just before the cut off for Labor Day. We have seen a large increase in subscriptions in 2020. For comparison to the current 2,884 flags for Labor Day, on Veterans Day 2019 we had 2,411 flags.

Pamela Gregg, University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI)

Greg Griffin introduced Pamela Gregg, the Communication Administrator at the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI).

Pam has been at UD for more than 20 years, the last 17 as communication administrator for the University of Dayton Research Institute, where she manages internal and external communication and media relations. She was a writer and photographer for the Dayton Daily News for 12 years before joining UD. Pam loves getting to know people and telling stories about them and their work, especially research stories, which involve a bit of “foreign language translation”—science to non-science.

If you would like to contact Pamela Gregg click here.

Gregg said she enjoys being the communication administrator at UDRI since the researchers do all the work and she gets to brag about it. She came today to talk about various areas of research and projects that UDRI engages in. They are a very busy research facility and because of security and time constraints, she only covered a subset of all the projects.

Testing Silkies for Harness Racing

UDRI does a lot of research and work that is not done anywhere else. UDRI is the only place on the planet that certifies the safety of newly designed silkies for harness racing. A silkie is the cart that sits behind the horse that the jockey rides in. UDRI was asked to create a machine to test silkies 30 years ago. The industry was concerned about the composite materials being used to make the silkies lighter and they wanted to make sure the designs were safe.

The machine tests the silkie with pressures and stress that is higher than they will receive during a race. Until a prototype is approved by UDRI, a manufacturer cannot produce their silkie for sale.

Printing 3D Spare Parts for Airplanes

There is a C130 airplane in the UDRI parking lot. It did not land there. It was taken apart in Florida and sent up to UD via several flatbed trucks. Once all the parts arrived in the UDRI parking lot, it was reassembled and is now a working laboratory.

The U.S. Air Force wants to find ways to maintain aging airplanes. Parts are not being made anymore for several old but still useable models. UDRI is working on 3D printing methods for replacement parts. It is very expensive to have parts made one at a time by hand by machine shops.

Before printing a part, they first scan it using a sophisticated 3D scanner. After the parts are printed, UDRI tests if a part can be used in actual flights. It is not that hard to produce parts, what is difficult is to produce parts that can handle the stress of real-world flight.

Robotic Painting and Drag Reduction

UDRI is researching the use of robots for complicated painting. Industrial processes can be very dangerous for humans.

UD Students help with several of their projects. One research project involves attaching 4 ft strips to airplanes to reduce the drag caused by the air turbulence airplanes create by flying.

Researching Bird and Debris Strikes on Airplanes

UDRI has done bird strike research for 40 years. Their facility is very tall and they have the largest test facility in the world for this research. They shoot various materials in various ways. Various parts of the plane are tested including wings and windscreen. They test various debris including hail, but mainly they shoot artificial or pre-deceased birds at airplanes.

Researching Drone Strikes on Airplanes

The number of drones in the air has dramatically increased in use in the past few years. UDRI wanted to know if a drone strike would result in different damage to an airplane than that from other debris.

UDRI ran an experiment. They shot a bird with the same mass as a drone. It did almost no damage. Then the drone without its battery was shot at a wing and the damage was extensive and affected the control wires in the wing. UDRI funded this initial test on their own, hoping there would be interest in further testing. They received interest almost immediately after the release of the video. They would like to see drones built to be more frangible. If an object is more frangible it means it is better at breaking into smaller parts on impact, which should reduce the effects of impact.

Watch this video of a drone hitting an airplane wing at high speed.

NASA Research

UDRI is testing materials that will be used to build space vehicles for NASA. To test the materials, they are simulating space debris by shooting small aluminum pellets at high speeds. UDRI has the fastest light-gas gun in the world.

NASA will land its next rover mission Perseverance in February, 2021. NASA wants to land the rover closer to the Martian equator than on previous missions and it will be warmer. UDRI was asked to analyze the effects of the higher temperature on the plutonium powered electric generator (RTG). Just a few degrees increase in outside temperature when combined with the heat of other rover systems can make a large difference and reduce the integrity of the RTG. UDRI was able to show that the RTG should be ok.

Artificial Intelligence

UDRI does a lot of work in AI. They are trying to understand how AI works. There are a lot of rapid medical diagnosis methods powered by AI. Even though AI works, the medical industry does not trust it because so far no one can accurately explain how the AI is coming up with its results. AI can accurately help with lung disease diagnosis by evaluating lung x-rays. This may help with the COVID pandemic.

Other UDRI Information

• More material research is done at UDRI than anywhere else.
• Their 2-story steel frame structure allows them to accurately test C130 landing gear.
• The do sensor research.
• They do energy research.
• They are the FAA clearinghouse for alternative fuels and they coordinate the approval of new fuels.

Thank you, Pamela Gregg, for joining us to educate CNO on some of the research done at UDRI.

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