GuardianCoil Offers New Blast-Mitigation ProtectioCascade Coil Drapery, Inc. and its recently formed affiliated company, Cascade Coil Defense Systems, introduce a new blast-mitigation fabric, GuardianCoil™.
The patent-pending GuardianCoil works by stopping and/or entrapping flying objects—glass shards and other materials—resulting from external primary or secondary bomb blasts or explosions. GuardianCoil’s interwoven (metal) coils stretch to absorb the flying glass splinters and other objects. GuardianCoil features a special retainment system that works like a glove to catch and deposit glass onto the floor below a protected window.
In multiple tests, GuardianCoil achieved high levels of government safety compliance based on multiple General Services Administration (GSA) government standards for blast mitigation. The company received its GSA government contract in September, 2010; GuardianCoil is offered under two categories, “Blast Mitigation” and “Architectural Drapery.”
“GuardianCoil marks a huge breakthrough for the blast-mitigation industry,” Ron Schoenheit, president of Cascade Coil, said in a statement from the company’s headquarters in Portland, Oregon. “Already we’ve had a tremendous positive response from the military, blast consultants, the State Department, the FAA and architects, contractors and structural engineers.” He adds, “The GSA contract allows the government to easily purchase our drapery products and is a significant milestone in itself.” GSA contracts are extremely difficult to obtain because of their stringent guidelines and requirements for qualification.
Schoenheit foresees many uses for GuardianCoil in embassies and consulates, airports, military bases, government office buildings and hotels and other private businesses.
GuardianCoil is available in four major weaves, ranging from 3/32” to 1/4”. The blast-mitigation fabric is produced in regular carbon steel or stainless steel in several gauges. A green product, GuardianCoil is easy-to-clean, cost-effective and even comes in any color, thus avoiding the prisonlike, negative psychological feel associated with many blast-mitigating products. Over the years, Cascade Coil architectural drapery has filled the need for window opacity, allowing natural light and unobstructed views, and indeed is one of the product’s distinctions.
People like to look outside their windows. This fact of life gives GuardianCoil a major advantage over other blast-mitigation fabrics, which can obscure windows. In more than one instance, Schoenheit learned that workers regularly push back existing blast-mitigating fabrics so they can see outside, thereby negating any blast-protection value.
GuardianCoil is not only translucent so people can see out, it also can be configured to fit any size window. For additional protection inside potentially vulnerable spaces, GuardianCoil can be used as decorative interior partitions or room dividers.
Protecting large populations—ranging from foreign service workers, diplomats and embassy workers to non-governmental organization staff to hotel and hospitality workers and guests—is the bottom line for GuardianCoil’s makers.
“GuardianCoil offers a way for companies and offices worldwide to save lives and reduce injuries,” says Schoenheit. He foresees GuardianCoil’s potential for theft protection as well, but for now he’s immensely satisfied to know that GuardianCoil will be protecting the world’s citizens. “From a personal standpoint, I am fortunate to be working on a project like this, to save lives.”
The Testing Process
Cascade Coil began the requisite testing of its new GuardianCoil wire-mesh fabric in 2009, after much research and development. The first tests were run in Socorro, New Mexico, two weeks prior to Christmas that year. Company executives learned that the tests went well, but in order to achieve the “High Protection Level” ranking they coveted, they still needed to add some refinements to the system.
Using feedback from potential customers, Cascade Coil’s engineers created an improved securing system for the top and bottom of the mesh panels.
Round two of the testing took place near San Antonio, Texas, in August, 2010, this time using a method that re-created various blast pressures. The testing was successful, meeting and even exceeding the GSA’s stringent standards.