Civil Utility Products

The civil utility industry is another field where composite materials have significant advantages over traditional designs. Metis Design has worked with Highline Products over the course of several years to develop novel civil utility products. In addition to being moisture resistant and fire retardant, the composite materials used for these designs provide significant weight savings without sacrificing strength. Several of Highline's competitors make products such as transformer box pads out of concrete, resulting in weights of over 300 pounds. By using polymer concrete, Highline had reduced the weight of similar products to around 120 pounds. Lighter weight products are faster and easier to install, saving utility companies significant personnel and equipment costs.

Highline approached Metis Design in 2000 to introduce reinforced plastics into their product line to realize even greater benefits. Utilizing SolidWorks and MSC.Nastran, MDC's engineers iterated on the randomly oriented glass reinforced thermoplastic design in order to fulfill regional testing requirements while minimizing manufacturing costs. Once the design and analysis had been completed, Metis Design worked with a strategic partner to prototype and test parts. Based on these test results, MDC worked to redesign and fine-tune the product.

MDC's innovative, patented design combined with a custom formulated reinforced plastic material gives these new low-density products tremendous stiffness. This design allows Highline to offer a product that is competitively priced and offers several other value-added benefits. Highline Products' press release.

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