While some companies were closing factories and offices, NUCAP Industries, a family of technology companies, created new applications for its proprietary technologies to help healthcare facilities in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
In the past three months, NUCAP has created and manufactured two new products that have helped both healthcare facilities and workers carry out their duties for the populations they serve. The first product, called the Grip Timber Cross Laminate Block (GTCLB), helped hospitals and other healthcare facilities build temporary structures to house patients recovering from COVID-19.
The second product, pre-cut kinesiology tape, gave healthcare workers a solution to the irritation, scars and sores that marred their face from wearing an enhanced facemask system.
“We are a proud Canadian and American manufacturer, and our main focus is to provide the end consumer with products that are built of the highest quality and will last,” said Montu Khokhar CEO of NUCAP. “Attachment technology and protection are the core focuses in all that we do; whether it’s NRS Galvanized brake pads, where we have the most secure attachment of friction material to galvanized steel for protecting your families on the road, or SpiderTech kinesiology tape, a breathable technology that transforms into your very own protective second skin, or GripMetal, the future attachment technology that can take any and all waste materials and attach them to together to build protective structures.”
A Better Building Block
The same technology developed by NUCAP to mechanically assemble a brake pad was applied to building materials for temporary hospital facilities. In partnership with Farrow Partners, NUCAP developed a state-of-the-art, cross-laminated timber (CLT) building block. These blocks allowed healthcare facilities to erect temporary structures for recovering COVID-19 patients.
The CLT building blocks, called the Grip Timber Cross Laminate Block (GTCLB), use the same NUCAP GripMetal technology invented in the 1990s to secure brake friction material to a metal backing plate. GripMetal uses tiny metal hooks that help to bond building materials to achieve a block that outperforms concrete or drywall.
The block’s small wood elements are bonded with strips of Grip Metal, then processed in a pressure stamping press which applies 200 tons of pressure on each woodblock. The process takes three seconds of pressure, allowing a NUCAP facility to manufacture 1,000 blocks an hour. The resulting blocks can be assembled into walls and columns that are similar in performance and environmental properties to cross-laminate timber (CLT) floor and wall systems. If a panel or block is damaged or exposed to contagions, the section can be easily replaced.
A Better Mask
During the initial outbreak of the pandemic, pictures surfaced on social media of medical professionals with scars on their faces caused by surgical facemasks The employees of NUCAP saw the pictures and came up with a solution.
SpiderTech, a division of NUCAP, pioneered pre-cut kinesiology tape applications as a way to take pressure off overused muscles. Originally used as a way to reduce pain for athletes, the breathable SpiderTech tape does not aggravate the skin, making it perfect for protecting the faces of medical professionals and first responders that needed to wear a facemask for long periods.
“The idea came about after seeing the pictures of nurses from all over the world after they took off their masks,” said Dr. Nick Martichenko from SpiderTech. “We knew we had to do something to help these people.”
In early March, SpiderTech started producing and selling the mini i-Strip face protection strips.
NUCAP has also been providing the strips and masks to hospitals, health care centers and industry partners like Friction Materials Standards Institute (FMSI) and Babcox Media.
