CAMX announces winners for 2017 CAMX Award recognizing Combined Strength and Unsurpassed Innovation
December 12, 2017 (Orlando, Fla.) – CAMX – The Composites and Advanced Materials Expo is proud to announce the winners of the fourth annual CAMX Award, sponsored by Ashland. The CAMX Award recognizes two cutting-edge innovations that will significantly impact composites and advanced materials. The award is divided into two categories that embody the spirit of CAMX – Combined Strength and Unsurpassed Innovation.
As two distinct honors, the Combined Strength Award acknowledges a product that incorporates composites materials that solves a problem through teamwork and collaboration, and the Unsurpassed Innovation Award celebrates a product with a design that incorporates low-cost materials for high-volume applications that can change the outlook of a particular market.
The winner of this year’s Combined Strength Award is Composite Advantage, LLC, which teamed up with West Virginia University and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to produce a new GFRP product that has proven as a successful replacement for standard wicket gates made of white oak. The composite wicket gate costs 40 percent less on a first-cost basis, provides an eco-friendly alternative to old-growth hardwood, and increases a gate’s lifespan from 15 years to 50 years. A longer lifespan saves repeated installation costs, increases diver safety by avoidance, and has virtually no maintenance costs.
The winner of this year’s Unsurpassed Innovation Award is Structural Composites for its next-generation CoCure hybrid metal/composite technology featured in Wabash National’s first trailer made with molded structural composites. By incorporating molded structural composites instead of aluminum, Wabash improved the trailer’s overall thermal performance by up to 25 percent. The trailer’s floor is also up to 20 percent lighter than it would be with steel, and the system is far more puncture- and damage-resistant than conventional constructions.
The winning CAMX Award entries and finalists will be on display at the CAMX Award Pavilion in the bottom left hand corner of the Exhibit Hall. For more information, go to http://www.thecamx.org/awards-competitions/.