You might never have heard of Acrylife, a company with ties to Virginia Tech. But that may change as hurricane season approaches.
Two Virginia Tech alumni and brothers – Chuck and Pat Johnson – principals of Acrylife, Inc. a Wytheville company in the roofing systems business – are taking the Virginia Tech motto to heart and are helping “Invent The Future”. After brainstorming alternative ways to secure rooftops, they approached Virginia Tech for help with research and development.
Some background: When Hurricane Andrew made landfall on Aug. 24, 1992, $26 billion worth of damage resulted. The roofing industry would need to change. But instead of coming up with a revolutionary new roofing method, the industry relied on numerous fasteners, which are expensive and compromise roof integrity, to better secure the roof to the structure.
Enter the Johnson brothers with their V2T system.
The V2T is a foot-high plastic structure that has two domes connected by three narrow columns. Airflow is split, speeding up the wind that is forced through the vent between the two domes, which creates a drop in pressure. This low-pressure system prevents uplift and detachment of the roof membrane. Roofs stay intact even during the most violent storms.
But the V2T didn’t start out that way. Originally, the concept the brothers brought to Virginia Tech was a tube-shaped vent that would rotate to catch the wind. Building on that idea, a team of professors and students, back by funding through Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology based in Herndon, Va., helped develop the omnidirectional design.
The team designed and built several prototypes with various shapes, distances, and connecting columns – testing them in Virginia Tech’s stability wind tunnel as well as NASA’s full-scale wind tunnel at Langley Air Force Base.
With proof of concept well established, additional research was necessary to get the technology ready for commercialization. Money to underwrite the R&D from Virginia Tech came from the U.S. Small Business Administration in a program that included both Virginia Tech and the University of Kentucky. Ted Settle, recently retired director of the Office of Economic Development in Virginia Tech’s Outreach and International Affairs, worked with the Johnsons to partner with James Jones of the Virginia Tech Department of Architecture and Andrew McCoy of the Department of Building Construction. Phase one consisted of a study of airflow characteristics over buildings to determine the best position and placement of the vents.
A second phase of the study has to do with “analyzing the critical components necessary for a successful commercialization plan,” says Chuck Johnson. McCoy is conducting this plan – a vital process in ensuring that V2T will be ready for assembly line manufacturing.
“You have to understand that small companies like ours don't have the capital or the resources to get something like this accomplished. We need to find grant monies to accomplish our objective, and Virginia Tech has been an integral part of the development process, both in helping with the grant writing and conducting many of the research agendas,” Chuck Johnson says.
While research is being committed to the manufacturing process, Chuck Johnson and his team are proving that the V2T technology works. “We have an installation in the Grand Caymans on the Royal Plaza that has been exposed to two indirect hits by hurricanes since it was installed,” he says. In addition, AcryLife has worked with J. A. Piper roofing to complete installations on St. Francis Hospital in Greenville, S.C., and with Hamlin Roofing on Rex Hospital in Raleigh.
Thanks to the help of Virginia Tech, the Johnson brothers have been able to help bolster the future of roofing.