Applications of Composites in

Marine Structures

Nivin V
AM15M038
Composite Materials
MM5001

1. Introduction
2. Recreational Marine Industry
3. Commercial Marine Industry
4. Fishing Industry
5. Naval Application
6. Underwater Pipelines
7. Challenges for the Future

Introduction
Start of fiberglass boat building began after World War-II.
In 1960s, lower cost hulls that required virtually no maintenance launched new class of boaters.
Early FRP boat builders relied on build and test or empirical methods.
In 1960 , Marine Design Manual for Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics
- Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation sponsored U.S naval architecture firm, Gibbs & Cox
- First fiberglass design guide for boatbuilding industry.

Recreational Marine Industry

Launching of FRP boat building.
Advantages of seamless hulls, with minimum assembled parts were the driving factors
in the development of FRP boats.
Light weight, vibration damping, corrosion resistance, impact resistance,
low construction costs and ease of fabrication, maintenance and repair.
Typical application factors:
- Improved performance through weight reduction
- High load carrying capacity
- High fatigue life

Racing Powerboats
A safety cell cockpit was designed by Fothergill Composites Inc.
Safety cell was constructed of carbon and aramid fibres
with aramid honeycomb core.
It can sustain 100 foot drop test without much damage.

 Racing Sailboats
Performance of these boats are highly sensitive to weight.
Thin skin sandwich laminate with minimum skin and maximum core thickness, fibre
densities and cure temperatures - America's Cup Class Rule

Single-Skin Construction & Sandwich Construction

Early fiberglass boat building produced single-skin structures with stiffeners .
Smaller structures used isotropic chopped strand mat laid-up manually or with a chopper gun.
Fiberglass cloth and woven roving were integrated into the laminate For high strength application.
Ortho-polyester resin - Matrix material.

Sandwich Construction: For increasing stiffness.

Good performance under bending loads due to hydrodynamics forces.
Primary core materials: Linear and cross linked PVC & End grained balsa.

Resin Development
Epoxy resins Better strength properties but costly than Ortho-polyester resin.
Iso-polyester resin Resist blistering, hence used as barrier coat.
Vinyl ester resin - Excellent blister resistance, but cost in between epoxy and polyester.

Commercial Marine Industry

Use of FRP
Long term durability & favourable fabrication economies
Weight reduction
Reduction of labour costs when multiple vessels are fabricated from same mould

LeComte
Vacuum-assisted injection molding.
S-glass, carbon and aramid fibres used with polyester resin.
The deep-V hull is made by RTM with hybrid fibres, achieving a 25% weight savings.

Applications on Large Ships

For non-load bearing members. Eg: Piping for ballast.
Advance composite materials reduces fabrication/maintenance cost, reduce weight, aesthetic appearance.

Commercial Deep Sea Submersibles

Foam cored laminates (PVC foam with FRP skins) used as buoyancy material.
Oil industry uses it for Pressure vessel application too.
It offers a better combination of Low weight, improved stiffness & impact toughness.

Fishing Industry
GRP widely used in construction.
Reduces long-term maintenance cost , increased hull life, cleaner and sanitary fish
holds.
Resins are rigid polyesters, reinforcing a lay-up of alternating plies of mat and woven
roving.
Sandwich construction(with end grain balsa) used but limited because of core
soakage and rotting in wetted areas.
Bottom stiffening is generally wood (pine or plywood) encapsulated in GRP.
When initial expense is considered, Wood is preferred and when maintenance cost is
the consideration, GRP should be chosen.

Naval Application

Submarine Applications
Syntactic foam is used for buoyancy, thick-walled composites for pressure housings.
Periscope fairings are glass with epoxy resins used in structural mast.
Submarine launched missile
-Nose shell constructed with syntactic foam core and prepreg skins of carbon and epoxy resin.
-Reduction in noise levels and weight as compared to the conventional aluminium nose shell.
-Even damping characteristics can be optimized based on material selection, orientation and
lay up sequence.

Surface Ships
Non-structural bulkheads used in service in U.S. Navy ships.
1)Aluminium honeycomb with aluminium face sheets
2)E-glass FRP skins over an aramid core material
Glass and Carbon reinforcing Fibres (in epoxy matrix) replaced steel shafts.
- Weighs only 25% of traditional Steel shafts
- Corrosion resistant, low bearing loads, reduced magnetic signature, higher fatigue resistance,
greater flexibility, excellent vibration damping and improved life-cycle cost.

Composites in Underwater Pipelines

In Offshore/Onshore operations
Internal or external metal loss due to erosion and/or corrosion damage mechanisms in the steel pipe.
Wrapping the corroded part of a pipeline with FRP.
Upto yield point of steel pipe, steel is the main load carrying component. Beyond yield point FRP
starts taking significant part of pressure.

Effectiveness test on repaired pipe specimens

Wrapping can restore the bearing
Pressure

Internal defect

External defect

Key Challenges For The Future

Manufacturing & Life Cycle Assessment
Construction of a mould is both expensive, time-consuming.
Emissions from the polymer resins during the curing process can have significant health and safety
implications.
Thermoplastic matrix composites (TMCs) as an alternative to Thermoset composites is the ongoing
research in Marine Industry.
There has been use of Polypropylene thermoplastics and glass reinforcements as a recyclable and
durable structural material.
Safety
As ships and boats are made to order, extensive testing and prototyping are done to avoid uncertainty
and variability
Factors considered are:
- Process type
- Reinforcement type/Reinforcement material type
- Resin variability
- Core variability
- Variation of loads

References:
[1] Nariman Saeed, Composite overwrap repair system for pipelines - onshore and
offshore application, The University of Queensland, 2015
[2] MARINE COMPOSITES published by Eric Greene Associates, Inc.
[3] R. A. Shenoi, Janice Dulieu-Barton, S. Quinn, Stephen Boyd, Composite Materials
for Marine Applications: Key Challenges for the Future, 2011

Thankyou