Universities and Composites Team Against the High Seas

Many modern modes of transportation may make you forget that other modes of transportation exist, but one such mode—shipping—is still a large percentage of the importing/exporting business. Sadly, however, much of the shipping technology remains archaic and therefore susceptible to modern modes of thievery. Right now, less than five percent of shipping containers are scanned because they come through so many ports. If a port tried to search every container that passed through, it would create a back-log and congest worldwide trade. Yet, with the help of composites, the University of Maine and Georgia Tech hope to remedy that problem.

Beginning with the 9/11 Commission, containers were considered a breach of security. As an outcome, maritime security wanted a system designed that would monitor the cargo in-transit. Ideally, once a container was closed, it would remain secure and could therefore pass without inspection. “However, a policy was never implemented on how this process would actually be executed, let alone how it would affect trade lanes,” says Gisele Bennett, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech Research Institute.

Four years ago both the University of Maine and Georgia Tech submitted their own proposals to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to create a technology that would monitor containers from the moment they were sealed until they reached their final destinations. At the time, Georgia Tech was developing a security container device and door monitoring system that could monitor if a shipping container was opened en-route. “Right now, there are no mechanisms to monitor cargo accurately. But with the technology we are developing, if even a hole is drilled, it will show us,” says Bennett. “The system is a series of sensors embedded into the walls, door and floor of the container that will monitor when a breach occurs. Then, the GPS will tell us exactly where it occurred,” Bennett further explains. “And if they are worried about a particular type of problem they’ll be able to reprogram the system to detect certain things and possibly view it live from a site similar to Google Earth.”

However, there was an issue concerning the sensitive and delicate nature of the electronic equipment as cargo shifts. Bennett’s group needed something stable enough to embed the security system into the actual container; something that steel couldn’t provide. So last year the DHS teamed them with the University of Maine, who had submitted a proposal to create composite containers containing embedded materials, thereby approving both schools’ proposals.

“It’s hard to embed sensors into steel. It’s heavy, the contents shifts around and the sensory system would break long before it had time to work in a shipping environment, says Habib Dagher, director of the AEWC (Advanced Structures & Composites Center) at the University of Maine. “Imagine a huge fork lift banging around these containers. They love to use the side of containers as a guide as they bring more containers in. Plus, a stack of containers can weigh 8,000 pounds; imagine being the bottom container. We had to design a container that was strong enough to handle its load as well as that of others without generating false alarms within the sensor system.” Meanwhile, Georgia Tech began working on a way to embed their sensors into composites, which required slight modifications to connect the grid, instead of the former wall paper approach. One of the most important modifications was allowing the sensory system, made of a conductive mesh, to be able to withstand the high temperatures during the manufacturing of the composite panels.

The universities hope to have the container ISO certified by the end of June and are optimistic about its future usefulness in all types of shipping. Dagher explains that an initial cost increase could be a deterrence, but, “Steel lasts only 10-15 years whereas composites are lighter, more corrosion resistant and therefore can last longer,” he says. “Because of these inherent properties, more material can be shipped in the composite containers and they can be used for a longer period of time. Thus, the container has paid for itself in 2-3 years.”