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Spinoff story

Composite Materials

A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.

About this technology

Overview

To improve certain characteristics of composite materials, Lewis developed an improved impregnating solution known as PMR-15. Ferro Corporation, interested in adding to its own line of prepregs, obtained, from Lewis, the formula and the procedure for synthesizing PMR-15 and, after a period of company experimentation, used it in developing new composite materials. These Ferropreg composites, compounded of polyimide/glass and polyimide/graphite have a variety of applications.