SANFORD, Fla. (Dec. 17, 2003) – The NASA-funded Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP) has helped Seminole County manufacturer R. L Best Company improve its production capabilities.

SATOP provides free engineering assistance to small businesses with technical challenges through the donations of time and expertise from 40 Space Alliance Partners throughout the country.

Founded in 1967, R. L. Best manufactures large tonnage hydraulic presses that extrude large pieces of aluminum, which produce items such as windows, doors and screened patio enclosures for the construction industry.

R.L. Best needed to design a container assembly, which would maintain a specified temperature along the length of the aluminum piece that is inserted during extrusion. However, the company was having difficulty attaining the correct temperature throughout the container.

“We needed zoned heat that would gradually increase toward the center of the container. What we didn’t know was how to obtain that temperature gradient,” explained Ted Best, R. L. Best vice-president. “After trying some hand calculations on our own, we took the problem to one of our vendors, but the challenge proved to be outside their technical realm as well.”

Best then heard about SATOP through the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission. After Best completed a Request for Technical Assistance (RTA), the project was assigned to Jim Jones, a senior analyst with Design By Analysis, Inc. (DBA), a new Alliance Partner based in New Britain, Conn.

R. L. Best provided DBA with drawings of the container, a description of the problem and what attempts had been made to find a solution. Armed with this information, Jones employed the use of specialized software to build a transient thermal analysis.
Jones quickly analyzed the container until he was able to identify the approximate desired thermal gradient. “I modeled the components using advanced simulation software and gave the results to R. L. Best,” said Jones. “After confirming that they correlated with the test results, I identified a method for R. L. Best to use their own in-house software to make future approximate predictions. Now they have the methodology to predict the temperature gradients and to make accurate design decisions themselves.”

“Thanks to SATOP and DBA, we have designed a new container that is currently being tested,” said Best. “Their model has given us a technical advantage and allowed us to see what’s happening with the heat transfer inside the container. We could not do this without DBA’s analysis.”

The entire request for technical assistance took less than two months to complete from start to finish, at no cost to the R. L. Best Company. “All of us at R. L. Best think SATOP is a fantastic program and hope to use them again for future technical challenges,” said Mr. Best. “We are very pleased with how quickly everyone was able to respond and get the job done.”