Personal Vacuum Assisted Climber (PVAC)
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s 2012 Service Academy and University Engineering Challenge, in which teams had to design gadgets that would allow soldiers to safely and quickly ascend vertical surfaces […] took place April 16th to 20th, at Wright State University’s Calamityville tactical laboratory in Fairborn, Ohio. It was required that all competing devices must allow users to climb higher, faster and with less effort than current techniques allow. The devices also had to be reusable, permit multiple pitches within one climb, allow the operator to keep one hand free for using other equipment, and be capable of getting three people each carrying 300-pound (136 kg) loads up a 90-foot (27.5-meter) vertical silo within 20 minutes.
At the heart of the two PVAC units were two back-mounted carpet extractor motors. These each created suction with a three-stage impeller, were powered by seven lithium-polymer batteries, and created a seal against the wall using connected handheld pads lined with closed-cell foam. A pressure release lever on each pad allowed it to be secured against the wall when being used by the climber to pull themselves up, then released so it could be lifted higher.
A gauge indicated safe vacuum levels, while a volt meter let climbers know if they were about to run out of juice (as it turned out, they just made it).
Hanging beneath each pad was a stirrup, with a foot rest made from fiberglass rebar. Users placed one foot in each stirrup, then set to climbing the wall. “The motion of the system is like that of climbing a ladder,” team leader TJ Morton told us. “The only difference is the climber must learn to correctly distribute his weight as he climbs.” […]
[read more] [Wright-Patterson Air Force Base] [Photo: USU]
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