Twenty major developments in seven years - Thinking outside the box at the Beloit Downingtown Research Lab

Abstract

The Bi-Wind and the Rho-Meter hardness tester are two well-known achievements of the Beloit Corporation's Downingtown Research Lab and there were many more in the period 1964 to 1971. A small group of researchers, building on their own discoveries, saw a major shift in thinking in that seven-year period, lead by Kenneth G. Frye, appointed Manager of Research in 1964.

We acted as a harmonious group, seeking out new solutions to existing problems based on what we had previously uncovered, and what we could learn through the assimilation of technologies that could reveal new answers. We found ourselves working in fields that were unusual for a lab based on paper technology -- aerodynamics, acoustics, electronics, optics, printed circuits, lasers, microscopy, polymers, and metallurgy, to name a few. At the same time, we relied on the fundamentals of materials science, mechanics and kinematics, and machine design.

As new facts and solutions to problems were discovered, they were presented in industry seminars and publications in technical journals. Contrary to the current practices of the day, we published as it happened, not waiting until years after the fact. That in itself was unusual, as competition was secretive about what they were working on. Sometimes the knowledge spawned new products and new patents. In other cases the products came later as the understanding branched into different fields. The sequence of development will be of interest to other researchers, but of particular interest is the number of findings that were never officially published, and the number of investigations which were left incomplete when the Downingtown Laboratory abruptly closed in 1971. Some of these topics are still worthy of study by graduate students and other researchers.