Every so often, I wonder if any of the products and devices that I designed over the past 30 years had any measurable, direct impact on peoples' lives. I was involved in the design of Apollo space ship and the LEM. I designed portions of the MOL which blew up on the launch pad. I designed portions of the C-17. I designed high speed facsimile equipment and laser printers before they were popular in offices worldwide. I designed infrared breast scanners before the popularization of mammography. I designed climate controls for automobiles and telemetry systems for taxi cabs. I designed hybrid power supply modules for the Space Lab which will soon be launched. Although memorable, I can't say that any of them have any direct impact on peoples' lives. The facsimile equipment did change the way people do business, but the facsimile equipment only became popular after its cost was reduced to the level that it became a commodity item.

However, I do recall a project that I would like to believe had a measurable impact on people's lives. It was an infrared tire scanner, the design of which was subcontracted to EDA® by Barnes Engineering. The ultimate customer was B. F. Goodrich. B. F. Goodrich was a tire manufacturer who was interested in reducing the number of blowouts of tires, especially while they were operating at high speeds and under heavy loads, and was willing to invest the research necessary to meet that goal. B. F. Goodrich theorized that tires have blowouts because of a weakness in the reinforcing tire chord. They further theorized that there would be more localized friction in the area of the break. This increased friction would cause the temperature in the immediate area to rise. If only the area of the break or weakness could be located while the tire is operating under load, it could be examined prior to a blowout and the conditions leading to a blowout could be documented. Such data could then be utilized to improve the design of the tire. The end result should be less blowouts and less road casualties.

The challenge presented to EDA® was to resolve the surface temperatures of half inch by half inch picture elements of the tire tread and side walls while the tire was rotating at high speed and under a load and to output these data to a data storage and processing device. The solution involved utilizing an indium antimonide infrared detector located within an insulated Dewar and cooling it with liquid nitrogen. Through an infrared lens, the picture elements of the tire were then imaged onto the detector. The across the tread axis scan was accomplished utilizing a stabilized, galvanometer scanner with a mirror. Secondary mirrors were utilized to direct the beginning and ending segments of the scan to both side walls of the tire. The longitudinal scan was accomplished by the tire rotation. The scanner had to resolve half degree Centigrade increments in temperature and had to convert radiated energy, a nonlinear parameter, to temperature very accurately. The entire scanner was housed in a rugged industrial enclosure, fabricated from jig plate, that could withstand flying tire segments when testing tires to failure.

The prototype scanner was assembled, tested, calibrated, demonstrated, sold off, and then delivered. Subsequently there was the usual silence and I heard little more about the project and how useful the scanner was at achieving its intended goals. In fact, my immediate customer claimed to have also heard very little. I had many questions. How well did it work in the laboratory? Would they like more scanners? Could it be improved? Did they ever use it? Was it lying in some closet? No one seemed to know. The work of B. F. Goodrich was cloaked in secrecy. Even their instrument vendor was kept in the dark.

But then, about ten years later, EDA was contacted that the scanner had a failure and needed to be repaired. Could it be repaired at EDA? Curiosity got the best of me and I immediately responded "yes." A few days later, the original prototype was delivered and I could hardly recognize it. What was once a fairly good looking, well-painted enclosure was covered with all kinds of grime and products of blowouts. The original paint was literally eroded on at least half of the scanner's surfaces. It appeared to be a well-used piece of equipment. In a short time, the unit was repaired, recalibrated and sent back for more torture. That was the last time I had any contact with that tire scanner.

After that repair incident, I began to reflect that I did not know anyone who recently had an unexplained blowout. Obviously, if one gets his tires slashed, especially on the sidewalls, from a sharp object, it does not count. But of late, on the road and at high speeds, we have become accustomed to having tires that do not explode. This is a great improvement over tire performance even twenty years ago. I would very much like to believe that the tire scanner that EDA designed and built for Barnes Engineering and for B. F. Goodrich, which enabled B. F. Goodrich to perform the necessary testing and research, had some impact on the quality and reliability of its tires and on the tire industry.