As water from Hurricane Sandy began flooding New York City’s subway tunnels last October, attention turned to a small company in central Delaware.
Over the last few years, ILC Dover had been developing an inflatable plug to block underwater tunnels from rising sea levels.
The technology wasn’t ready in time for Sandy, but it left many to wonder if, with climate change, the plugs would eventually become a common feature of underground mass transit.
But it’s not the first time ILC Dover finds itself at the forefront of an emergent technology.
WDDE delves into the history of ILC's products.
WDDE delves into the history of ILC's products.
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The sign out front ILC Dover in rural Delaware reads “Creating what’s next.”
In 1964, what was “next” for the small company with an expertise in soft goods was designing a suit for NASA’s new destination, the Moon. ILC would become the sole designer of NASA’s outer space life support systems in a new era exploration
And manned space exploration is just one area where the company has developed products of the future. Since it’s founding as the International Latext Company or ILC in 1932, the company has worked closely with the military and commercial businesses to confront new challenges of an advancing planet.
“ILC is very good at listening to what the needs are out there in the marketplace and the responding to those needs,” said Dave Cadogan, ILC’s Director of Engineering. He adds in many ways, over the years the company has been as resilient and malleable as the textiles and membranes it uses in its products.
When the U.S. government needed aerial surveillance on the Mexican border, ILC built aerostats. When chemical and biological weapons threatened soldiers on the battlefield, ILC designed gas masks and protective suits. In 1994, when NASA planned to land a rover on Mars, ILC built airbags to help it land on that planet's surface.
And, two months ago, as the approach of Hurricane Sandy portended widespread flooding along the East Coast, the company again found itself ahead of the curve.
Dave Cadogan explains ILC's newest product, the Resilient Tunnel Plug.
Dave Cadogan explains ILC's newest product, the Resilient Tunnel Plug.
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“We took some technology from some work we’d be doing with NASA on inflatable space habitats [and] we brought all that together and created the resilient tunnel plug in its current state,” said Cadogan.
ILC has been working on an inflatable, pill-shaped plug to prevent tunnels from flooding. Cadogan stresses that it’s designed for underwater tunnels and not necessarily the type of flooding seen in New York City’s subway system. But, he says, the principle is the same: a tough inflatable air bag that conforms to the shape of an enclosed space.
“You send a signal to the airbag and you turn on some inflation systems and the container opens up, drops the airbag into the tunnel. It inflates fairly rapidly -- within a couple of minutes -- and then gets to full pressure and it’s ready to go,” explained Cadogan.
Cadogan says a critical aspect of its design involves a liquid crystal polymer, called Vectran, that ILC used in the Mars pathfinder missions.
“The outer layer is sort of like taking seatbelts and weaving them together in this macro woven assembly that makes it very foldable and pliable and yet just extremely damage tolerant and virtually impenetrable,” said Cadogan.
[audio:http://www.wdde.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/ILCDOVER.mp3|titles=Listen to Joseph Leahy's piece on ILC Dover from Thursday's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.]
University of Delaware Professor of business history, Jonathon Russ, says ILC’s ability as a company to adapt and conform to the contours of the time is a distinctly American quality.
He says it’s also reminiscent of another famous Delaware company: DuPont Chemical Company, which over a century has transitioned from producing gunpowder, to paint and is now investing heavily in a range of markets from alternative energy to agriculture.
“A firm like ILC I think finds itself in a similar position of ‘where do we go from here and how do we take what we are good at, what we do know -- and try to adapt those skills and that expertise to some different areas',” said Russ.
Riding the currents of emerging trends, ILC has many directions in which to go. With the real or perceived threats of global warming, and terrorism, it sees its future in helping protect public spaces. With a growing pharmaceutical industry, ILC is producing affordable, containment systems to use for drug manufacturing.
And even though NASA officially ended its shuttle missions last year, the universe of commercial space exploration has just begun. Looking skyward, Professor Russ says ILC is in a good position.
“If say 30 years from now, you are shopping for a space suit at your local purveyor, I know I would want to go with the firm that had been in the business the longest and who were there with the men on the moon. As opposed to some new fashion label that is just getting into the business,” said Russ.
And, though much of ILC’s new research with the US government is top secret, Cadogan can confirm that ILC has already begun designing space suits with companies like Space X and Boeing in mind.