Fibers for helicopter blades score points on tennis court

Sometimes an interesting new technology can take an unlikely turn on its way to market.

By Jon Van Chicago Tribune

Consider a new material developed with an eye toward improving the performance of helicopter rotors but instead has found its way into high-tech tennis rackets and skis.

The material is a piezoelectric fiber. Piezoelectric materials convert mechanical energy to electrical energy and have been used in applications for more than a century.

A New Jersey firm, Advanced Ceramics Inc., developed a relatively simple process for making piezoelectric fibers and won Department of Defense funding to develop it as a way of reducing jitter in helicopter rotor blades. That application is still under study, but in the meantime, the sporting goods industry looms.

"I was talking about the fibers to a friend of mine who plays tennis, and he suggested it sounded like a great idea for tennis rackets," said Richard Cass, chief of ACI.

The idea is to embed piezoelectric fibers into the structure of a tennis racket so that when a ball is struck, the vibrations produced create a small electrical current that is fed into some circuitry that produces a signal intended to counteract the vibrations.

Cass proposed the technology to Head Sport AG, a unit of Head NV, the European firm that makes skis and tennis rackets; more than 50,000 high-tech rackets have been sold.

Besides improving the player’s control, the technology reduces the shock transmitted to the wrist and arm, cutting back on tennis elbow injuries, said Herfried Lammer, a Head researcher.

Lammer and Cass were in Chicago last week to accept an award from R&D magazine for the high-tech skis manufactured by Head that cut down on the vibration that can diminish a skier’s control. The R&D 100 Awards banquet was staged at Navy Pier.

Dozens of other piezoelectric fiber applications are in the works, said Cass, including using the fibers to convert movement caused by the human pulse into electrical current that can recharge a person’s pacemaker battery. Eventually, Cass suggested, it may be possible to run pacemakers without batteries by harnessing the pulse’s mechanical energy.

"Piezoelectric technology is all about producing power from wasted energy," he said.

Keep on trucking: As the name suggests, each year the R&D 100 Awards recognize 100 technologic advances made during the previous year. They can range from the esoteric to the truly marvelous, but some are just good ideas well executed.

The advanced travel electrification system developed by IdleAire Technologies Corp. of Knoxville, Tenn., is one of those achievements that is fairly straightforward, but a fine idea nonetheless.

ATE is a system installed at truck stops that hooks a service module into the door window of a truck parked for the night while the driver rests. Drivers often spend rest time in their truck cabs, which have space for sleeping. It’s also common for truckers to keep their motors running to provide the power for climate control.

The ATE system supplies warm or cool air as needed, enabling the trucker to shut his motor, conserve fuel and stop polluting. As a bonus, the system supplies electricity, high-speed Internet, a cable television connection, telephone line and just about anything else a trucker might want, short of a refrigerator.

"We originally developed this with the trucker’s comfort in mind," said Wray Williams, IdleAire’s marketing manager, "but the positive environmental impact has been a big selling point."

Truckers pay $1.25 an hour for the service, but that works out to less than what they typically pay for the fuel burned when idling their motors all night, Williams said.

IdleAire has installed 11 systems at truck stops, with two more installations under way, he said.

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

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