Transmaterial

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Advantic

Advantic is a syntactic foam made by mixing or combining hollow glass microspheres with an epoxy resin. This high-strength composite solves many of the problems associated with other common tooling materials. Cornerstone Research Group (CRG) Industries’s proprietary mixing process minimizes the number of microspheres that break during mixing, a common problem in manufacturing syntactic materials. This process enables Advantic to maintain low density with high uniformity and minimum void content.

Because Advantic is lightweight, it reduces wear and tear on machining equipment. It also has low thermal conductivity and specific heat, so it requires little warm-up time and virtually eliminates plug sticking during thermoforming. Advantic is dimensionally stable and will keep its shape over a wide range of temperatures. The material can also be machined using standard carbide-tipped tools in sheet-fed, rotary, or in-line machines for a variety of applications.

Advantic is available in small or large lots of customized material with custom properties. CRG Industries can customize properties such as compressive strength, flexure strength, material density, operational temperature, chemical resistance, electrical properties, thermoconductivity, water absorption, and surface finish. [Contact: CRG Industries, Dayton, OH.]

Labels: 06, foam, glass, material, ultraperforming

Active Protection System

Dow Corning's Active Protection System is a "smart" textile that remains soft and flexible until it is struck by high-impact force, in which case the material instantly stiffens to help protect against injury. When the collision has passed, the material immediately becomes flexible again.

The active ingredient in the fabric is a dilatant silicone coating, which is a shear thickening fluid (STF). The viscosity of this coating increases with the rate of shear, therefore defining it as a smart material as it responds to changes within its environment.

The Active Protection System is breathable and flexible for outstanding comfort and freedom of movement, and it can be stitched directly into garments, eliminating the need to insert and remove components. It is less bulky than hard armor, allowing for many creative and fashionable design possibilities. The washable fabric can be layered to provide customized levels of protection for specific areas, and it integrates easily into existing manufacturing processes.

Independent testing shows that the Active Protection System exceeds certain European Standards' impact protection requirements for sports apparel by as much as 40 percent. The fabric’s superior effectiveness is due to its ability to both absorb and distribute impact force, providing protection that is activated earlier and lasts more than twice as long as rigid protective systems. [Contact: Dow Corning, Midland, MI.]

Labels: 12, fabric, material, transformational