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VIDEO INTRODUCTION
TO HARDWIRE

Real Player Video
(Length: 16 min)


WHAT IS HARDWIRE
Hardwire is a family of reinforcements made from ultra high strength twisted steel wires. It is a revolutionary material that affords end users the ability to put ultra high tensile strength steel (11 times stronger than typical steel plate) inside or outside just about any material. In a word Hardwire is moldable steel. Hardwire can be molded into thermo-set, thermoplastics or cementitious resin systems with never before seen ease and it occupies a new reinforcement niche between fibers and steel rebar. This creates a new class of reinforcements, micro-rebar, that will work with composite, plastic, and cement based processes. Further, Hardwire can be used to upgrade steel, wood, or concrete structures in both new construction and in retrofit applications.

Composites made from Hardwire are up to 70% thinner and 25% lighter than composites made with glass fibers. When it comes to cost Hardwire is in a class by itself. Hardwire is priced like glass, yet performs like carbon at a fraction of the cost. Hardwire was literally born on the shop floor making it ideal for all types of molding operations, where ease of production has been designed in from the start. Because Hardwire can be molded with just about any resin you can then hybridize it with all existing commercial fibers.

Hardwire will open the doors to new material combinations and processes. Hardwire has been used to reinforce wood products using common wood adhesives, it has been used to reinforce thermo-set resins, saving weight, thickness, labor and eliminating costly quality problems like porosity, ply wrinkling and exotherms, and it has been laminated into thermoplastics that were simply too viscous to be reinforced with other fibers. Using Hardwire, boat builders can become ship builders, thermoplastic molders can make steel reinforced polypropylene and retrofit companies can now reinforce steel with even better steel instead of lesser materials.

Hardwire is also one of the world’s toughest and most blast resistant materials. Explosion tests performed by the United States Navy have proven that Hardwire reinforced urethane and polyureas can upgrade steel structures to provide significant blast protection. The world has changed and fortunately Hardwire is now available to protect the innocent lives that terror threatens. In ballistic laminates Hardwire is now being designed in to both break up the projectile and catch the resulting fragments. The ultra high strength wires contained in Hardwire act to slice bullets the way food processors slice cheese. By breaking the projectile into slices, Hardwire acts to spread the energy from the threat and lower the loads for the material designed to catch the fragments.

Hardwire is available as single end rovings, or as unidirectional tapes. Hardwire cords come in 3 primary structures and are available with 3 different coatings. Hardwire uni-directional tapes can be specified with wire cord counts from 4 to 23 wires per inch resulting in strengths ranging from 1.1 to 8 kips per inch. Hardwire uni-tapes are available in widths of 12” (coming soon 60”) and lengths up to 2500 ft. All Hardwire material is shipped on spools that make handling the material on the shop floor a breeze.