PU-steel sandwich construction wins shipbuilding award

LONDON (Oct. 1)—Intelligent Engineering, the originator and co-developer of the polyurethane elastomer-based sandwich plate system (SPS) for making reinforced steel structures, has won the inaugural Lloyd's List SMM Award for Innovation in Shipbuilding Technology. SPS comprises a PU elastomer core sandwiched between two metal plates, a construction that obviates the need for secondary stiffeners and prevents local buckling. It offers a superior alternative to conventionally stiffened structures and yields significant performance, safety and economic benefits to both owners and manufacturers, Intelligent Engineering claims. The award, presented at this year's SMM congress in Hamburg, Germany, recognizes innovations that improve the performance, safety or economics of ships and shipbuilding, the firm added. Intelligent Engineering, in cooperation with Elastogran GmbH, the Lemforde, Germany-based subsidiary of BASF A.G., has spent nine years developing SPS and has numerous patents on the technology.