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One local company is determined to prove that not all those who play - or work - with fire get burned.
Chapman Innovations has developed a heat- and fire-resistant fabric, CarbonX, that will be featured tonight on the Discovery Channel's "Smash Lab" show. The program examines new technologies in experimental applications.
The fabric was developed by company founder Mike Chapman, who previously worked in motorsports and wanted to create a fabric that would protect race-car drivers from fire-related injuries. The result was a fabric made of oxidized polyacrylonitrile, a nonconductive carbon-based material and a strengthening fiber. The company says the product can withstand temperatures of more than 3,000 degrees.
"Our roots are in motorsports, but we soon discovered many other applications for the fabric," said Bob Goulet, Chapman Innovations' chief operating officer.
To demonstrate the fabric's capabilities, Goulet on Tuesday put a penny on a single layer of the fabric that was laid across his hand. A flame from a blowtorch was fired at the penny, turning it into a molten blob of liquid metal. The fabric and Goulet's hand were unharmed, and the fabric quickly cooled.
He said that the fabric is used by the military and firefighters, and in industrial plants and to protect houses from wildfires.
Goulet said competing nonflammable fabrics can rip open and get hard.
"Those fabrics do extinguish and don't drip, but they also break open, leaving the skin exposed to flames."
To demonstrate its product's practical applications, Chapman Innovations referred the media to Sara Dean, of Charleston, S.C. She credits the fabric in undergarments with saving her husband's life when he was in an explosion at a steel mill.
"Molten slag exploded all over his body" and he was not able to free himself from the small vehicle he was driving, she said Tuesday in an e-mail to The Tribune.
Dean said her husband had third-degree burns on his hands, face and leg, but that the injuries would have been much worse had he not been wearing undergarments made with CarbonX.
Chapman Innovations has since developed products other than clothing, such as a house cover that will be featured tonight on the Discovery Channel. For the show, the company covered a raw plywood house with a cover made of CarbonX fabric and insulation materials, and attempted to light the house on fire.
The house cover "kept everything intact, and it's reusable. Embers can sit on the roof for an extended period of time," said Goulet, adding that cover will sell for about $15,000.
Other products offered include long underwear, gloves ($50 to $100), shoes, hoods and socks, some of which are made for race-car drivers by Oakley, a sporting goods and apparel company.
Goulet says that the company is discussing using the product in aircraft interiors, as well, but he hopes more applications will be discovered.
* WHAT: "Smash Lab"
* WHERE: Discovery Channel
* WHEN: 8 p.m.