Composites firm looks to boats and beyond
An engineer with a trained eye can take a look at a boat's hull and get a sense of how fast it can travel. The engineers at Maine Marine Composites go one better, developing software that can gauge how much slamming a hull can endure at high speeds and in variable ocean conditions. It's an expertise that landed the Congress Street company a $600,000 contract from the Office of Naval Research, which wants to improve the safety of high-speed boats used by SEALs and other specialized marine forces.
"Navy SEALs report a large number of serious injuries that occur while personnel ride in the boats currently in the fleet," says Richard Akers, chief technical officer at Maine Marine Composites, in a release from the company. "We need to make these boats safer and MMC will provide software design tools that accurately predict slamming shocks expected during operations of these boats."
The two-year contract means the company will immediately hire two more engineers, CEO Steve Von Vogt told Mainebiz, increasing its current staff by one-third. But more importantly, the software is transferrable to other industries that use floating systems in extreme ocean environments, including the emerging offshore wind industry, says Von Vogt. Understanding the ocean stresses on platforms that support offshore wind turbines is one potential use of the software and why Von Vogt spent a good part of last week at the Maine Wind Industry Seminar Series 2010, a three-day wind power conference held at the Clarion Hotel.
"This software is also applicable to the alternative energy world," says Von Vogt , who is also executive director of the Maine Composites Alliance. "Not a lot of companies work in this field, so it helps us develop a reputation and puts Maine in people's minds when it comes to this kind of technology."
The Navy contact is geared toward making improvements to design software called POWERSEA, originally produced by Maine Marine Composites and the Navy's Carderock Research Facility in Bethesda, Md. The software is used by naval architects in the government and private industry, says Von Vogt. The enhancements are expected to improve the accuracy of simulations on new marine craft designs, including allowing designers to assess stress impacts on hulls without a tank test. The project will be done in collaboration with the Combatant Craft Division of Carderock, according to the release.
Von Vogt says there are only five naval architecture firms in the United States and none are in Maine. He hopes further research and collaborations with the composites center at the University of Maine in Orono and the Maine Maritime Academy will produce a cluster of expertise that attracts more business to Maine.
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments