Heritage — variant
Limited release
Hexprotect® Fortress — 2022 limited-release variant
Hexprotect® Fortress (patented 2022) is the AWTT limited-release variant for demanding industrial envelopes — restricted to protect the design from copying.
Hexprotect® Fortress is the AWTT-patented variant introduced in 2022 — the most recent member of the patented hexagonal floating cover family, kept in restricted release to protect the engineering from copying.
What is Hexprotect® Fortress?
Hexprotect® Fortress is AWTT’s 2022-patented variant for the most demanding industrial envelopes. It extends the hexagonal floating cover platform beyond the Hexprotect® AQUA envelope for deployment cases where wind, life, or environmental loading is at the upper end of what the platform serves.
The variant is intentionally not broadly promoted. Fortress is specified case-by-case rather than catalogued as a stock product, which protects the engineering from being reverse-engineered into generic copies the way the original Hexprotect® and AQUA have been.
Where Fortress sits in the family
| Variant | Patent year | Production status | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original Hexprotect® | 2010 | Retired | Foundational self-ballasting design — see /heritage/original-hexprotect. |
| Hexprotect® AQUA | Pre-ballasted refinement of the 2010 line | Current workhorse | Released 2009 — see /heritage/hexprotect-aqua-refinement. |
| Hexprotect® Fortress | 2022 | Limited release | Demanding industrial envelopes only — case-by-case. |
For the broader family — including AWTT’s Hexprotect® SLIM, Armor Ball AQUA, and EuroCover’s AWTT design-approved Hexofloat® — see /heritage/family-tree.
Why this variant matters
Two reasons. First, Fortress is the live engineering reference that AWTT continues to evolve the patented hexagonal platform — the 2022 patent is the most recent in the line. Second, the restricted release pattern is a defensive engineering choice: keeping the variant out of broad commercial circulation makes a generic copy economically harder to produce.
How to specify Fortress
Fortress is not a stock product. Procurement runs through case-by-case engineering review:
- Confirm that the application falls outside the AQUA envelope (e.g., wind exposure above 130+ MPH, design life beyond 25 years, or environmental loading at the upper end of the platform).
- Open a conversation with EuroCover Water Systems with the site envelope (wind, life, water-body geometry, regulatory regime).
- AWTT consultation confirms whether Fortress is the right specification or whether a case-engineered AQUA configuration meets the envelope.
For the vast majority of EU industrial deployments, the AQUA spec is the right one — and that is what eurocovers.eu quotes.
Sources
- AWTT — Hexprotect® AQUA hexagonal cover — manufacturer canonical reference for the patented hexagonal line. Fortress patent provenance is referenced in AWTT’s provenance section.