COMPOSITE MATERIALS

(MM 5001)

Assignment: Application of Composites in Marine Structures

NIVIN V
AM15M038
M.Tech 3rd Semester

1. Introduction
The evolution of composite material boat construction has created the need to evaluate the
basic design tools that are used to create safe marine structures. As materials and building
practices improve, it is not unreasonable to consider composite construction for vessels up to
100 meters (approx. 330 feet). The origins of composite material concepts date back to the
builders of primitive mud and straw huts. Modern day composite materials were launched with
phenolic resins at the turn of the century. The start of fiberglass boatbuilding began after World
War II. The U.S. Navy built a class of 28-foot personnel craft just after the war based on the
potential for reduced maintenance and production costs. During the 1960s, fiberglass
boatbuilding proliferated and with it came the rapid increase in boat ownership. The mass
appeal of lower cost hulls that required virtually no maintenance launched a new class of
boaters. Early FRP boat builders relied on build and test or empirical methods to guarantee
that the hulls they were producing were strong enough. Because fiberglass was a relatively new
boatbuilding material, designers tended to be conservative in the amount of material used.
In 1960, Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation sponsored the naval architecture firm, Gibbs
& Cox to produce the Marine Design Manual for Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics. This book,
published by McGraw-Hill, was the first fiberglass design guide targeted directly at the
boatbuilding industry. Design and construction methods were detailed and laminate
performance data for commonly used materials were presented in tabular form. The guide
proved to be extremely useful for the materials and building techniques that were prevalent at
the time. Airframe loads in aerospace structures also differ from those found with maritime
structures. However, in recent times the two industries are coming closer together. High-end
marine manufacturing is looking more to using prepregs, while aircraft manufacturers are
looking to more cost-effective fabrication methods.

2. Recreational Marine Industry

Over 30 years of FRP boat building experience stands behind today's pleasure boats. Complex
configurations and the advantages of seamless hulls were the driving factors in the development
of FRP boats. FRP materials have gained unilateral acceptance in pleasure craft because of
light weight, vibration damping, corrosion resistance, impact resistance, low construction costs
and ease of fabrication, maintenance and repair.
Fiberglass construction has been the mainstay of the recreational boating industry since the
mid-1960s. After about 20 years of development work, manufacturers seized the opportunity
to mass produce easily maintained hulls with a minimum number of assembled parts. Much of
the early FRP structural design work relied on trial and error, which may have also led to the
high attrition rate of start-up builders. Current leading edge marine composite manufacturing
technologies are driven by racing vessels, both power and sail. Racing sail and power events
not only force a builder to maximize structural performance through weight reduction, but also
subject vessels to higher loads and greater cycles than would normally be seen by vessels not
operated competitively.

2.1 Racing Powerboats

Racing powerboats employ advanced and hybrid composites for a higher performance craft
and driver safety. Fothergill Composites Inc., Bennington, VT, has designed, tested and
manufactured a safety cell cockpit for the racing boat driver. The safety cell is constructed of
carbon and aramid fibres with aramid honeycomb core. This structure can withstand a 100 foot
drop test without significant damage. During the Sacramento Grand Prix, three drivers in safety
cell equipped boats survived injury from accidents.

Fig 1: Safety Enclosed Driver Capsule with Prepreg Material [Ron Jones Marine]

2.2 Racing Sailboats

The new America's Cup Class Rule specifies a modern, lightweight, fast monohull sloop for
racing yachts. The performance of these boats will be highly sensitive to weight, thus, there is a
premium on optimization of the structure. The structural section of the rule calls for a thin skin
sandwich laminate with minimum skin and core thicknesses and densities, as well as maximum core
thickness, fibre densities and cure temperatures.

Fig 2: Preliminary ACC Design Developed by Pedrick Yacht Designs

2.3 Single-Skin Construction

Early fiberglass boat building produced single-skin structures with stiffeners to maintain
reasonable panel sizes. Smaller structures used isotropic (equal strength in x and y directions)
chopped strand mat laid-up manually or with a chopper gun. As strength requirements
increased, fiberglass cloth and woven roving were integrated into the laminate. An orthopolyester resin, applied with rollers, was almost universally accepted as the matrix material of
choice.
2.4 Sandwich Construction
In the early 1970s, designers realized that increasingly stiffer and lighter structures could be
achieved if a sandwich construction technique was used. By laminating an inner and outer skin
to a low density core, reinforcements are located at a greater distance from the panel's neutral
axis. These structures perform exceptionally well when subjected to bending loads produced
by hydrodynamic forces. Linear and cross-linked PVC foam and end-grain balsa have evolved
as the primary core materials.
2.5 Resin Development
General purpose ortho-polyester laminating resins still prevail throughout the boating industry
due to their low cost and ease of use. However, boat builders of custom and higher-end craft
have used a variety of other resins that exhibit better performance characteristics. Epoxy resins
have long been known to have better strength properties than polyesters. Their higher cost has
limited use to only the most specialized of applications. Iso-polyester resin has been shown to
resist blistering better than ortho-polyester resin and some manufacturers have switched to this
entirely or for use as a barrier coat. Vinyl ester resin has performance properties somewhere
between polyester and epoxy and has recently been examined for its excellent blister resistance.
Cost is greater than polyester but less than epoxy.
2.6 Unidirectional and Stitched Fabric Reinforcement
The boating industry was not truly able to take advantage of the directional strength properties
associated with fiberglass until unidirectional and stitched fabric reinforcements became
available. Woven reinforcements, such as cloth or woven roving, have the disadvantage of
pre-buckling the fibres, which greatly reduces in-plane strength properties. Unidirectional
reinforcements and stitched fabrics that are actually layers of unidirectional offer superior
characteristics in the direction coincident with the fibre axis. Pure unidirectional are very
effective in longitudinal strength members such as stringers or along hull centrelines. The most
popular of the knitted fabrics is the 450 by 450knit, which exhibits superior shear strength and
is used to strengthen hulls torsionally and to tape-in secondary structure.
2.7 Advanced Fabrication Techniques
Spray-up with chopper guns and hand lay-up with rollers are the standard production
techniques that have endured for 40 years. In an effort to improve the quality of laminated
components, some shops have adapted techniques to minimize voids and increase fibre ratios.
One technique involves placing vacuum bags with bleeder holes over the laminate during the
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curing process. This has the effect of applying uniform pressure to the skin and drawing out
any excess resin or entrapped air. Another technique used to achieve consistent laminates
involves using a mechanical impregnator, which can produce 55% fibre ratios.
2.8 Alternate Reinforcement Materials
The field of composites gives the designer the freedom to use various different reinforcement
materials to improve structural performance over fiberglass. Carbon and aramid fibers have
evolved as two high strength alternatives in the marine industry. Each material has its own
advantages and disadvantages. Both are significantly more expensive than fiberglass but have
created another dimension of options with regards to laminate design. Some low-cost
reinforcement materials that have emerged lately include polyester and polypropylene. These
materials combine moderate strength properties with high strain-to-failure characteristics.

3. Commercial Marine Industry

The use of fiberglass construction in the commercial marine industry has flourished over time
for a number of different reasons. Initially, long-term durability and favourable fabrication
economics were the impetus for using FRP. More recently, improved vessel performance
through weight reduction has encouraged its use. Since the early 1960s, a key factor that makes
FRP construction attractive is the reduction of labour costs when multiple vessels are fabricated
from the same mould.
3.1 LeComte
LeComte Holland BV manufactured versatile FRP landing craft using vacuum-assisted
injection molding. S-glass, carbon and aramid fibres were used with polyester resin. The entire
hull is moulded in one piece using male and female moulds via the resin transfer molding
(RTM) process. LeComte introduced a new type of rigid hull, inflatable rescue boat. The deepV hull is made by RTM with hybrid fibres, achieving a 25% weight savings over conventional
methods. Boat speeds are in excess of 25 knots.
3.2 Textron Marine Systems
Textron Marine Systems has long been involved with the development of air cushion and
surface effect ships. In 1988, the company implemented an R & D program to design and build
a small air cushion vehicle with a minimal payload of 1200 pounds. The result is a line of
vessels that range in size from 24 to 52 feet that are fabricated from shaped solid foam block,
which is covered with GRP skins. The volume of foam gives the added value of vessel
unsinkability. Shell Offshore Inc. has taken delivery of a 24 foot version for use near the mouth
of the Mississippi River.
3.3 Commercial Ship Construction
In 1971, the Ship Structure Committee published a detailed report entitled Feasibility Study
of Glass Reinforced Plastic Cargo Ship prepared by Robert Scott and John Sommella of Gibbs
& Cox .A 470 foot, dry/bulk cargo vessel was chosen for evaluation whereby engineering and
economic factors were considered. Conclusions of the study were,
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The design and fabrication of a large GRP cargo ship was shown to be totally within
the present state-of-the-art, but the long-term durability of the structure was
questionable.
The most favourable laminate studied was a woven-roving/unidirectional composite,
which proved 43% lighter than steel but had 20% of the stiffness.
Major structural elements such as deckhouses, hatch covers, king posts and bow
modules appear to be very well suited for GRP construction.

3.4 Applications for Advanced Composites on Large Ships

There are numerous non load-bearing applications of FRP materials in commercial ships where
either corrosion resistance, weight or complex geometry justified the departure from
conventional materials. As an example, in the early 1980s, Farrell Lines used FRP false stacks
in their C10 vessels that weighed over 30 tons. Also, piping for ballast and other applications
is commonly made from FRP tubing. Advanced composite materials on large ships have the
potential to reduce fabrication and maintenance costs, enhance styling, reduce outfit weight
and increase reliability.
3.5 Commercial Deep Sea Submersibles
Foam cored laminates are routinely being used as buoyancy materials in commercial
submersibles. The Continental Shelf Institute of Norway has developed an unmanned
submersible called the Snurre, with an operating depth of 1,500 feet that uses high crush point
closed cell PVC foam material for buoyancy. From 1977 to 1984 the Snurre operated
successfully for over 2,000 hours in the North Sea. The French manned submersible, Nautile,
recently visited the sea floor at the site of the Titanic. The Nautile is a manned submersible
with operating depths of 20,000 feet and uses high crush point foam for buoyancy and FRP
materials for non-pressure skins and fairings. The oil industry is making use of a submersible
named David that not only utilizes foam for buoyancy, but uses the foam in a sandwich
configuration to act as the pressure vessel. The use of composites in the David's hull allowed
the engineers to design specialized geometries that are needed to make effective repairs in the
offshore environment.
A prototype of civilian submarine was built in Italy for offshore work. The design consists of
an unpressurized, aramid-epoxy outer hull that offers a better combination of low weight with
improved stiffness and impact toughness.

4. Fishing Industry
4.1 Commercial Fishing Fleet
The most important application of GRP in the construction of commercial vessels is found in
the field of fishery. GRP constructions here offered many potential advantages, particularly in
reducing long-term maintenance costs and increased hull life. In addition, GRP offers
reductions in hull weight and provides cleaner, more sanitary fish holds.
The materials selected for the GRP structures of these trawlers and cutters are essentially
extensions of current pleasure boat practice. Resins are generally non-fire retardant, non air6

inhibited rigid polyesters, reinforcing a lay-up of alternating plies of mat and woven roving.
The chopper gun is being used in limited areas for depositing chopped strand mat. Several of
the designs incorporate sandwich construction in the shell. End grain balsa is the principal core
material used, though it has often been restricted to areas above the turn of the bilge to minimize
the possibility of core soakage or rotting in the wet bilge areas. Bottom stiffening is generally
wood (pine or plywood) encapsulated in GRP.
Plywood is highly favoured for the construction of bulkheads and flats. A facing of GRP is
applied for water resistance, but the plywood provides strength and stiffness. Wood has also
been used extensively for decks in conjunction with GRP sheathing. This extensive use of wood
increases the trawler's weight above the optimum values, but represents a significant cost
saving. The space between the fish hold and the shell is usually foamed in place, which gives
an excellent heat-insulation.
Many GRP trawlers incorporate concrete in the skeg aft for ballast. This has been required in
some cases to provide adequate submergence of the propeller and rudder in light load
conditions. Thus, the potential weight savings afforded by GRP is often partially reduced by
the requirement for ballast. The use of concrete can be minimized by proper selection of hull
shape. GRP construction is generally credited with reducing the hull structural weight,
sometimes as much as 50%. However, this saving has not been realized in these trawlers, since
hull scantlings have tended to be heavier than theoretically required to increase hull ruggedness
and resistance to damage. In addition, the extensive use of wood in the hull structure and nonintegral steel fuel tanks has increased hull weight considerably.
In general, it may be stated that when initial expense is of primary importance, wood might be
preferred. However, when maintenance costs receive prime consideration, GRP should be
chosen.

Fig 3: A typical trawler

5. Naval Application
5.1 Submarines
During the Cold War period, the U.S Navy had an aggressive submarine research and
development program that included the investigation of composites for interior and exterior
applications. Both these environments were very demanding with unique sets of performance
criteria that often pushed the envelope of composites design and manufacturing.
5.1.1 Submarine Applications
Various submarine structures are made of composite materials, including the periscope fairings
on nuclear submarines and the bow domes on combatant submarines. The use of filamentwound air flasks for the ballast tanks of the Trident class submarines has been investigated.
Unmanned, deep submersibles rely heavily on the use of composites for structural members
and for buoyancy. Syntactic foam is used for buoyancy and thick-walled composites are used
for pressure housings. One unmanned deep sea submersible, which has a depth rating of 20,000
feet, is constructed with graphite composite by the prepreg fabrication technique.
Periscope fairings have been built of FRP since the early 1960s. These autoclave-cured parts
are precision machined to meet the tight tolerances required of the periscope bearing system.
The fairings are all glass, with a recent switch from polyester to epoxy resins. The two-piece
fairing is bolted around a metal I-beam to form the structural mast.
A submarine launched missile utilizes a capsule module that is constructed of composite
materials. The capsule design consists of a graphite, wet, filament-wound sandwich
construction, metal honeycomb core and Kevlar reinforcements. Several torpedo projects have
investigated using a shell constructed of composites, including a filament-wound carbon fibre
composite in a sandwich configuration where the nose shell of the torpedo was constructed
with syntactic foam core and prepreg skins of carbon and epoxy resin. Testing revealed a
reduction in noise levels and weight as compared to the conventional aluminium nose shell.
The composite materials have great flexibility to be optimized for directional mechanical
damping characteristics based on material selection, orientation and lay-up sequence.
5.2 Surface Ships
There has been growing interest in applying composite materials to save weight; reduce
acquisition, maintenance and life-cycle costs; and enhance signature control. The Navy is
considering primary and secondary load-bearing structures, such as hulls, deckhouses and
foundations; machinery components, such as piping, valves, pumps and heat exchangers; and
auxiliary items, such as gratings, ladders, stanchions, ventilation ducting and waste handling
systems. These applications have generated research and prototype development by the Navy
to verify producability, cost benefits, damage tolerance, moisture resistance, failure behaviour,
design criteria, and performance during fires.
Non-structural ship components are being considered as candidates for replacement with
composite parts. Two types of advanced non-structural bulkheads are in service in U.S. Navy
ships. One of these consists of aluminium honeycomb with aluminium face sheets, and the
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other consists of E-glass FRP skins over an aramid core material. Development of composite
propulsion shafts for naval vessels is being investigated to replace the massive steel shafts that
comprise up to 2% of the ship's total weight. Composite shafts of glass and carbon reinforcing
fibres in an epoxy matrix are projected to weigh 75% less than the traditional steel shafts and
offer the advantages of corrosion resistance, low bearing loads, reduced magnetic signature,
higher fatigue resistance, greater flexibility, excellent vibration damping and improved lifecycle cost.

7. Composites in Underwater Pipelines

Pipelines are widely used in the oil and gas industry in both offshore and onshore operations.
After several years of operation in more or less corrosive environments, existing steel pipelines
may suffer from internal or external metal loss due to erosion and/or corrosion damage
mechanisms. More than 60 percent of the worlds oil and gas transmission pipelines are more
than 40 years old and for the most part in urgent need of rehabilitation in order to re-establish
the original operating capacity.
The most recent repair method used for the repair of internally or externally corroded pipelines
is a method based on utilising fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites. This involves
wrapping the corroded part of a pipeline with this material. Many laboratory tests and field
experiments have been performed and documented in the past few years, which have proven
the viability of this method.
In 2002, a comprehensive series of tests aimed to fully understand how FRP layers interact in
repairing corroded steel pipes. Comparing four different FRP repair systems applied to pipes
and calibrating a FE model, they tested nine 20 nominal OD pipeline specimens of API 5L
X60 steel with the thickness of 0.562 and a length of 3m under internal pressure. The
specimens had machined external or internal defects, 500mm long, 95mm wide and 10mm in
depth, which was 70% of the pipe wall thickness. Seven pipes were tested after repair while
two were tested unrepaired. The results they obtained revealed that up to the yield point of the
steel pipe, steel is the main load-carrying component but beyond yield, FRP repair layers start
to take a significant part of the pressure. This was due to the small displacements in the hoop
direction as a result of steel resisting the deformations.
In 2007, Freire et al. presented the results of an experimental investigation on 14 pipe
specimens (J.L.F. Freire et al., 2007). The effectiveness of FRP repair on internally and
externally damaged pipelines was evaluated by the development of a quantitative tool. The
remaining strength factor (RSF) approach was used in this research, and it showed that RSF
could be used to quantify the effectiveness of FRP repair systems for pipelines. It was found
that the burst pressure resistance of damaged pipes repaired by FRPs could be restored to that
of the undamaged pipes. Moreover, they compared four different repair systems under a
particular loading protocol. Three repair systems allowed the damaged pipe to reach the
original design pressure. Only three specimens passed the proposed loading protocol, but none
of the repair systems passed all of the tests for both internal and external defects. It was
indicated that the behaviour of pipes with internal effects were different from those that possess
an external defect (Fig 4).
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Fig 4: Circumferential strain at the centre of the defect (a) Internal defect (b) External defect

8. Key Challenges for the Future

8.1 Load Transfer Mechanisms
Fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) materials offer potential savings in structural weight and
have been successfully employed in the construction of a variety of boats and small ships.
However the current wet lay-up production techniques have a number of disadvantages;
construction of a mould is both expensive and time-consuming, storage of the mould requires
substantial space (often at a premium in modern shipyards), whilst emissions from the
polymer resins during the curing process can have significant health and safety implications
for the workforce. The adoption of a construction technique utilising standard parts based on
pre-formed components could reduce or even eliminate some of these disadvantages.
8.2 Safety
One of the challenges in composites, particularly when products such as ships and boats are
made-to-order, with each being of a different design and specification, which militate against
extensive testing and prototyping, is the mechanism to manage variability and uncertainty.
The variabilities could be related to fabrication-driven, strength-driven and through-life-driven
factors.
On the fabrication side one has to consider the following:

Process type (Spray-up, HLU (Hand Lay-up), VARIM (Vacuum Assisted Resin
Infusion Moulding), Prepreg).
Topology (single skin monocoque, single skin stiffened, sandwich, hybrid).
Reinforcement type (CSM (Chopped Strand Mat), CFM (Continuous Filament Mat),
weaves and stitches).
Reinforcement material type
Resin variability
Core variability (balsa, PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride), honeycomb) densities vary from
part to part.
Variation of loads

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8.3 Life Cycle Assessment

The understanding of the environmental impact of a product will encourage better industrial
practice and be more adaptable in order to exceed current legislation which is becoming
increasingly strict and requires the manufacturer to take more responsibility for their production
and products. The marine industry has been investigating the use of thermoplastic matrix
composites (TMCs) as an alternative to thermoset composites for a number of years. The
marine industry cannot use costly high-performance materials which require specialised curing
cycles. Therefore there has been increasing interest in the use of cheaper and lower performance
polypropylene thermoplastics and glass reinforcements as a recyclable and durable structural
material.
8.4 Concurrent Engineering
In the ship and boat design process, appraisal of alternatives plays a key role in obtaining a
successful result. An incorrect decision at the initial appraisal stage can have a significant
effect on the costs of building a boat or ship. This is compounded in the marine industry by a
number of commercial factors.
The margins between a profitable and non-profitable design and build are small.
There is a good availability of new materials with potential for better performance.
There is growing commercial and regulatory pressure to introduce new processing
techniques.

9. Conclusions
In conclusion it can be clearly stated that there is a future for the continued and increasing use
of polymeric composite materials for structural marine applications. There is a great deal of
interest from industry in new ways to use existing materials and in using new and existing
materials in new applications. The performance of structures in marine craft need regular
and constant improvement, which will be driven by safety and quality issues. Economic
constraints will also play an increasing role in the future, hence the requirement for
development of concurrent engineering approaches. Life cycle assessment of composite
structures, in order to better understand and appreciate the environmental impact of their use,
is also required. Structural health monitoring and its associated inspection, intervention and
repair strategies will become increasingly important to both ensure the safe operation of
marine composites and to maximise and extend the life of these components.
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

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