Members of TTI’s Roadside Safety and Physical Security Division were honored last month by The Texas A&M University System Office of Technology Commercialization for a highway safety product patent issued in 2011. Patent number US 7,883,075 B2 is for a new guardrail end terminal they designed and tested. The product will soon be manufactured by Trinity Highway Products.
Akram Abu-Odeh, Gene Buth, Lance Bullard, Dean Alberson and Roger Bligh were honored for their invention, which will be marketed under the name Soft Stop.
“I believe this new guardrail system is the next generation of end terminals,” Dean Alberson, assistant agency director, explains. When the end terminal is struck by a vehicle, the tension on the guardrail is not released like the other guardrail terminals. “Upon impact, the Soft Stop terminal squeezes the guardrail vertically into a series of folded plates that are diverted under the vehicle once they exit the head of the device,” Alberson explains.
In addition to the TTI employees, researchers from the university, the Texas A&M Health Science Center, Texas AgriLife Research and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station were honored for their 2011 patent awards.
“This event gives us the chance to formally recognize the researchers within the A&M System whose work has significant real-world applications,” said Chancellor John Sharp at the ceremony. “Through commercialization of their inventions, research that began in a lab now has the chance to extend its reach and make a difference in people’s lives.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.