NASA boosts Canuck fuel-saving technology
CARP, Ont. — Researchers in this Ottawa Valley town are being honored by none other than the NASA for a fuel-saving invention that is gaining popularity throughout the trucking business.
The company is Aeroserve Technologies Ltd., and the product is Airtabs — small, lightweight, very low-drag vortex generators that help airflow bridge the gap between tractor and trailer and smooth turbulent airflow at the rear of any squared backed vehicle.
Working with vortex generators that were originally developed by Gary Wheeler and tested extensively by NASA for flow control, Aeroserve refined and commercialized the technology, resulting in the Airtab.
According to the manufacturers, fuel savings average three-percent in test track and real world applications. Easily installed using double-sided tape, Airtabs benefit any appropriate vehicle at speeds at or above 40 mph.
Airtabs have other benefits, too, Aeroserve says. Trucks handle better in gusty wind conditions and the drivers experience improvements in visibility through rain and snow.
Comments Aeroserve’s director of Business Development Kent Smerdon, “We’ve met many doubters along this road. This may serve to reverse some of them.”
This award is part of the induction of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Aerodynamic Vehicle Design Program team into the Space Technology Hall of Fame.
The Space Technology Hall of Fame was created in 1988 by the Space Foundation, in cooperation with NASA, to increase public awareness of the benefits resulting from space exploration programs and to encourage further innovation.
To date, the Space Foundation has inducted 61 technologies as well as organizations and individuals who transformed space technology into commercial products that improve the quality of life for all humanity.
Airtabs, which are manufactured in Ottawa by L-D Tool & Die, are marketed in Canada and the United States by Airtab LLC of Loveland Colorado and in Europe, Asia, Central and South America by WorldCrest Management Inc of Ottawa.
The announcement was made at the 25th Annual National Space Symposium Dinner on April 2, at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.
Have your say
This is a moderated forum. Comments will no longer be published unless they are accompanied by a first and last name and a verifiable email address. (Today's Trucking will not publish or share the email address.) Profane language and content deemed to be libelous, racist, or threatening in nature will not be published under any circumstances.