Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/142204
LATEST UMIP LICENSING NEWS PASSIVELY SAFE ROADSIDE CABINET communication equipment and need to provide a dry accessible environment for the increasing amounts of electrical equipment on our roads. Earlier this year, we assisted Professor Yong Wang from the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) to licence his passively safe roadside cabinet technology to North West company, Ritherdon Co. Ltd, following collaborative development initiated by the University's Business Engagement Team. Ritherdon, established in 1895, manufactures a variety of electrical enclosures to a range of industries including the street furniture and highways market. Roadside cabinets are used for feeder pillars for lighting columns and to house electrical apparatus including traffic light controllers and motorway Passively safe roadside equipment is designed to avoid serious injury when collided with by a vehicle. A significant proportion of accidents are as a result of collisions with signs, signals, poles and other items of street furniture which can now be made passively safe offering a real contribution in the reduction of personal injury to the occupants of vehicles involved in such accidents. The novel technology developed in collaboration with Ritherdon is a high-quality, stainless steel electrical enclosure for highways use which has been crash-tested and which is passively safe to EN 12767, making it possibly the world's first. Professor Wang comments: "This was a very pleasing experience of using our knowledge to make a real impact. The targeted approach by the University's Business Engagement Team ensured effective use of everyone's time throughout the entire process from research to products on the market." Ritherdon successfully crash tested their RB800 Passive Cabinet at the Transport Research Laboratory in December 2012 and January 2013 in two tests. In both tests the cabinet sheared away near its base on impact and was knocked ahead of the vehicle. The impact on the vehicle/passengers is much reduced as is danger of any electrical components breaking inside the cabinet. Passively safe sign and lighting columns are well established in the UK but there was a gap in what crash-tested street furniture was available. The RB800 Passively Safe cabinet has gone some way to closing this gap. Ben Ritherdon, CEO and University of Manchester Alumnus, comments: "One of our customers asked if we could design a passively safe cabinet. Following initial design work, Ritherdon & Co needed some computer modelling and mechanical engineering expertise to predict how our cabinet would behave before committing to several costly crash tests. So I looked to my alma mater, Manchester – a world-class university just down the road from our factory. Manchester's Business Engagement Team put me in touch with Prof Wang's group and together we have managed to design, build and test what is probably a world first in road safety equipment to be manufactured here in the North West." For further product information, please see Ritherdon's website. Photos provided courtesy of TRL 6 Remember to discuss possible IP protection before you publish. Contact your UMIP Commercialisation Executive first.