SAMPE announces 2021 George Lubin Award recipient

The Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE, Diamond Bar, Calif., U.S.) has announced Dr. Clement “Clem” Hiel, as the winner of the SAMPE George Lubin Award.

The Lubin Award is named for George Lubin, an originator of reinforced plastics and pioneer in the development and implementation of advanced composites for primary structures had a long and distinguished career. This award, SAMPE’s highest honor, is given to recognize individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of material and process engineering.

“Dr. Clement Hiel, in the spirit of George Lubin, sought and implemented ways to bring forth the next frontier of snap-fits, which is an innovative method to join composite materials without the use of fasteners,” says George Epstein, a 1996 George Lubin Award recipient. “Based on Dr. Hiel’s genuine practical insights, the snap-fit technology has emerged and has proven viable in several innovative applications.”

Some of Dr. Hiel’s most significant achievements include:

1. First composite conductor for worldwide energy delivery

Dr. Hiel designed the aluminum conductor composite core (ACCC) carbon/glass fiber hybrid strength member for high-voltage power cables. This ACCC conductor has been protected by a string of U.S. and international M&P patents which Dr. Hiel initiated.

M&P for this pultruded conductor design was set up by Dr. Hiel for Composite Technology Corp. (CTC-Global, Irvine, Calif., U.S.). Utility experts calculated early on that the reduced line losses on a “short” upgraded 62-mile line, would save $70 million over 20 years, and the reduction in CO₂ would be equivalent to taking 53,000 cars off the road.

The conductor was subsequently brought into production by CTC-Global using the pultrusion process; SAMPE reports that 60,000 kilometers have since been installed worldwide. One of its advantages is its significantly lower coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) (1.6ppm/°C) compared to steel-supported conductors (11.6ppm/°C). This allows the cable to operate at a significantly higher temperature without excessive sag between poles.

2. Snap connection technology

In 2017, Dr. Hiel designed, manufactured and made operational a 118-foot pultruded radar communication tower for the U.S. Air Force (USAF). The tower is fastenerless, making use of fourth-generation snap connectors. Dr. Hiel’s innovation received the Presidential 2016 Tibbets Award for Small Business Innovation Research.

3. Tooling for creating 3D reinforcement in pultrusion

A pultrusion infeed tooling was designed to fold a flat, reinforced fabric into 3D reinforcement. The performance of this tooling was such that it reliably folded the feedstock for thousands of feet, without a single tooling malfunction. 

Dr. Hiel developed the tooling and the manufacturing technology to mold webcore-type panels. These panels were made with an inorganic resin and process innovations were needed to control the process and slow the curing reaction to such a degree that enough time was available to complete the molding operation.

4. Firewall/ballistic wall technology

The three white walls which are shown here are ceramic-composite firewalls. This material was developed at the University of Brussels but had never been used in an industrial application.

Dr. Hiel’s company, Composite Support and Solutions Inc. (CSSI, Washington, D.C., U.S.), designed a modular firewall system that is certified for hydrocarbon fires. These firewalls act as effective fire breaks in the event of transformer fires. They are manufactured by CSSI in San Pedro, Calif., and installed in projects all over the world. These firewalls protect vital electrical utility infrastructure which is worth billions of dollars throughout the U.S. and the world