The good news for Castek, Inc. was winning a contract to supply preformed concrete highway barriers for a new airport tunnel in Boston. The bad news was their production rate - about 16 barriers per day. Castek needed to speed production to at least 24 units per day to meet the contract schedule. ETAC chemists and technicians worked with Castek to increase production by reducing coating and curing times with infrared technology and by adjusting the product's formulation. Castek's highway barriers are made in a two-stage process using steel molds.
Workers spray a gel coat onto the molds.
When the gel coat is tacky, they trowel an aggregate mix of poly-mer materials, pebbles and fiberglass into the mold. The mix cures after about 4 to 5 hours at ambient temperatures. Then, workers pull the barrier from the mold. ETAC's research goal was to reduce in-mold time to under 30 minutes. Additional goals were to improve process efficiency and product quality.