UMaine’s Composites Center Receives Creative Excellence Award
Contact: Habib Dagher, (207) 581-2138; Aimee Dolloff, (207) 581-3777
ORONO, Maine — For the third year in a row, the University of Maine’s AEWC Advanced Structures & Composites Center has been recognized as an industry leader by the American Composites Manufacturers Association (ACMA).
The center on Wednesday received the ACMA’s Most Creative Application Award for Composites Excellence (ACE) for its uniquely innovative “Bridge-in-a-Backpack.”
The Bridge-in-a-Backpack is a lightweight, corrosion-resistant system for short to medium span bridge construction using inflatable carbon-fiber tubes that act as reinforcement and formwork arches for cast-in-place concrete. The easily transportable arches are can be deployed rapidly and don’t require the heavy equipment or large crews needed to handle the weight of traditional construction materials. When deflated, the tubes fit into a sack not much bigger than a large athletics bag.
Two Maine bridges have been rebuilt using the Bridge-in-a-Backpack technology: the Neal Bridge in Pittsfield and the McGee Bridge in North Anson. Six more of these arch bridges will be constructed in Maine over the next year.
The ACMA annual conference and trade show, held this week in Las Vegas, is the top composites conference in North America, and usually about 3,000 industry representatives attend.
Only five ACE awards are presented each year for the most creative applications of composite materials. The advanced Structures and Composites Center received two ACMA awards in 2008 for its blast-resistant composite tent panels, and in 2009 brought home the ACE award for Most Creative Application for the blast-resistant building construction material.
“The ACE Awards are the highest composite industry awards in North America and we are humbled to receive it again this year,” says Habib Dagher, director of the AEWC Advanced Structures & Composites Center. “The award goes to the faculty, staff and students who worked on this project including Larry Parent (senior R&D program manager), Edwin Nagy (research engineer), Bill Davids and Roberto Lopez-Anido (professors of Civil and Environmental Engineering), Bob O’Neil (scientific technician), Richard Nye (composites process engineer) and graduate students Harold Walton, MacKenzie Demkowicz and Dan Bannon.”
In addition, one of the center’s spin-off companies, Harbor Technologies of Brunswick, received the ACMA’s Infinite Possibilities Award for Composites Excellence for its development of composite beam technology.
That award is presented for an entry that demonstrates the most creative application of composites materials that is imaginative and innovative.