North Cloth Engineers: Hot Commodity

North Cloth's engineering department walks above water

The work that North Cloth's engineers have done in developing high performance materials for sails is attracting interest from other high tech companies and aerospace agencies. During 1995 "Cloth" has collaborated on projects for NASA, MacDonnell Douglas and the U.S. Navy Research Laboratory. They have designed and built soft stowage systems for the Space Shuttle, developed new materials for very high altitude research balloons and engineered and tested the soft goods design and packing systems for a Navy countermeasure system.

North's first "space duffles" flew on the Russian MIR/SpaceLab station in Earth orbit in June 1995. Development of new bags is a continuing process and production has now been transferred to North's Toronto production facility. MacDonnell Douglas engineers indicated they saved more than 1,000 lb. in weight using soft stowage on a full mission. Their rule of thumb cost is $10,000 per pound to launch and orbit.

Recently North Cloth engineers have begun work with NASA's balloon group to develop ultra light reinforced films for research balloons. These huge balloons, up to 800 feet tall, can carry 6,000 pounds of scientific instruments to altitudes as high as 35 miles for atmospheric research and measurement of greenhouse effect gasses.

Several years ago, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, who happened to be an avid windsurfer, called North Cloth and asked if they could help with some material development. This has lead to a very successful collaboration to develop a complex countermeasure system with North Cloth's role being expanded well beyond materials into shape and load analysis, prototype design, fabrication and testing.

Led by engineers Peter Mahr and Brian Doyle, the special projects team includes sailmakers Bill Bergantz and Don White, and Loom technician Greg Snedeker. Peter and Brian both came to North from industrial research and development laboratories. Just before joining North Sails, Peter worked for Bell Labs in Atlanta, and Brian worked for Dynatech R&D Co. in Cambridge MA.

The special projects work has been a good way for North Cloth to keep in touch with new ideas in films, fibers, and textile processing. They will continue to expand these activities and look forward to the next challenge.