Fabricator reaps award

Dow Chemical Company presented one of its 2003 Americas Fabricator Excellence Awards (FEA) to Hardcore Composites. Hardcore Composites, New Castle, DE was honored for innovation and superior workmanship in the fabrication of composite wind fairings for the New York Metropolitan Bridge and Tunnel Authority’s Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. The wind fairings replaced 7,400 ft. of steel trusses. The company fabricated the wind fairings with Dow’s Derkane 8084 epoxy vinyl ester using vacuum assisted transfer molding. The resin’s strength and chemical resistance will extend the life span of the wind fairings and reduce maintenance costs. The project required 890,000 lb. of FRP, making it the largest use of structural composites in the world.

“The excitement, the challenge and the core of our vision as an industry is to find new and more advanced uses and applications for composites,” said Mark Siebert, global business director for composites at Dow. “This year’s winners have…(used) their capabilities in process know-how to fabricate high quality FRP parts displacing traditional materials.”