AMERICAN Flow Control, the valve, and hydrant division of AMERICAN Cast Iron Pipe Company, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, has announced the formation of AMERICAN Innovation, LLC, a company dedicated to research and development. The company intends to construct a facility, the AMERICAN Flow Control Center for Innovative Excellence, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, beginning this summer.
The 30,000-square-foot facility will cost USD 9 to 12M to build. Once completed, it will employ approximately eight research and development personnel. The facility will include the latest equipment and technologies for enhancing existing valve and hydrant products, as well as developing new infrastructure-related products.
One-third of the facility will be offices and labs; the remainder will be a shop for building and testing product prototypes. The facility will be located on 17 acres, providing for both indoor and outdoor product testing.
AMERICAN manufactures the iconic American-Darling and Waterous brands of fire hydrants for municipal and industrial fire protection applications, gate valves from 2 to 66 inches in diameter, check valves, indicator posts, tapping sleeves and more.
In recent years, AMERICAN has introduced several new products to the market including a wide range of large diameter resilient wedge gate valves, an earthquake-resistant valve and hydrant system, valves and hydrants with the ALPHA™ single-bolt restrained joint, GIS technology for mapping and asset management, the Captivater™ hydrant security system and the IP16 indicator post.