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GREENSBORO — From Vietnam to Afghanistan, the Boeing CH-46 helicopter is a fundamental tool for moving troops in rugged combat conditions.

Problem is, Boeing quit making these twin-rotor behemoths nearly 40 years ago and eventually stopped making replacement parts. So the U.S. Marine Corps must craft by hand such parts as aluminum body panels.

But a Greensboro company is helping to make those panels cheaper, lighter and stronger with its use of advanced composite materials invented at N.C. A&T.

Advaero Technologies is the first startup company with a small space in the ultramodern Gateway University Research Park on East Lee Street.
The park also houses the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering shared by UNCG and A&T.

Advaero is a small corporate spinoff from nanoengineering research at A&T and could eventually become a lucrative conduit for other academic ideas that have business potential.

The company couldn’t pursue its dreams, however, without the millions of dollars of cutting-edge machinery at the joint school, including a rare microscope that allows researchers to see atoms and a powerful water-jet cutting machine that slices cleanly through thick metal.

“For a startup company, we could never make that kind of investment,” said CEO Greg Bowers, one of the company’s founders and a longtime business executive.

The research park will be an incubator for such businesses, he said, which can rent the most sophisticated tools in the country from Gateway on an hourly basis to accomplish the work that only big companies once did.

“This is critical for us, for a startup,” Bowers said. “Gateway, in conjunction with the joint school, has bought a lot of sophisticated equipment.”

Nanotechnology is the science of creating and manipulating chemical particles in nanometers — billionths of a meter — to make materials that are light and strong, medicines that are more efficient, and paint coatings that are smoother and stronger, to name a few uses.

Advaero develops products from composite materials based on carbon fiber, which is a woven material that is bonded with resin that makes it a pliable and lightweight but very strong substitute for steel and aluminum in everything from cars to aircraft.

For the Marine helicopter, Advaero worked with a Morganton company called VX Aerospace. VX was asked to create a new material that could replace the drive-train “tunnel” across the chopper’s roof, connecting the two rotors to the engines.

The carbon-fiber replacement is lighter and one-third the cost of the aluminum part that is currently handmade.

It also helps the Marines fight its battles and save lives. The lighter material allows the helicopters to carry two extra troops in full battle gear or carry three extra wounded soldiers away from a battlefield. And in the high mountains of Afghanistan, it allows the lighter helicopters to fly higher with the same number of troops on board.

That’s not all Advaero is doing for the Marine choppers.

It has crafted a new type of flooring, not yet approved by the Marines, that is lighter and replaces the honeycomb aluminum flooring currently on the helicopters — which is not bulletproof. That’s a real liability in urban combat zones where helicopters are often hit with small-arms fire from rooftops.

An AK-47 rifle bullet simply bounces off the new material, which absorbs the impact and deforms rather than allowing penetration. The floor panel must be replaced after impact, but that’s better than having to lose the life of a soldier, Bowers said.

“If you’re the guy sitting on this side of it,” he said, “you’re happy to replace this part.”

Bowers said he has entertained a steady stream of parts makers, defense officials and even car companies who are interested in his products.
Those products will be good for the school in two ways.

First, they encourage new practical research and give students an outlet for their creations.

Second, the university receives equity in spinoff companies, a royalty for any invention and an annual license fee for technology invented at the school.

Bowers already is working with another invention. It’s a tissue-thin fabric made of glass that can be sandwiched in carbon fiber layers to add 60 percent more strength.

Aircraft makers will find this useful in two potential ways — by using fewer carbon fiber layers for less weight or by using the same number of layers with much more strength for the same weight.

Carbon fiber composites made by a variety of companies are becoming instrumental in aircraft development. Such complex aerodynamic planes as the HondaJet will be made at Piedmont Triad International Airport from a high-strength composite, as well as the massive Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

In the future, Bowers and his researchers hope to make:

* Sophisticated fabrics for lighter, more powerful batteries that could be used in cars and laptops.

* Light, absorbent fabric for oil-spill boom that can be heated in ovens to burn off excess oil and reused.

* Other parts that could be used to strengthen the underside of trucks.

It’s hard to predict what can be created, Bowers said.

But with such technology as a helium-ion microscope — a $2.5 million device that is one of only four available for research in North America — and a host of other expensive materials-testing machines, Bowers believes other companies, established and startup, will flock to the park.

The joint school is currently in temporary quarters at the research park’s new headquarters building, but it will move into a $57 million building under construction next door within the next two years.

“If it’s going to happen, this is where it has to start,” he said. “If you don’t have this, it’s not going to happen. That’s a given.”

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com