srPET - Has Anyone Used This?

[CatBuilder]

Has anyone used srPET as a hull material?

http://www.aptiform.com/Uploads/UserImages/20080519135847sheetmat2.jpg

It's from Denmark.

Does anyone know its cost as compared to fiberglass or epoxy over ply?

[marshmat]

Made by Aptiform, if I'm not mistaken?
( http://www.aptiform.com/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=1&tabid=459 )
Strength/weight and stiffness/weight seem to be in about the same ballpark as more conventional FRP composites. It looks like the moulding procedure can be rather involved; the manufacturer suggests that it could be used for PWCs. That seems like it could be reasonable; the tooling costs for these can be spread out over thousands of hulls. Whether it would be economical for shorter runs of larger parts would be an interesting thing to study.

[CatBuilder]

It is interesting, and I know they used it on Plastiki to support all the 2 liter bottles, so I was wondering how it would fare as a hull material in general. Yes, it's made by Aptiform.

[srPET_maker]

The manufacturer is Comfil from Denmark.
(http://www.comfil.biz/products/new-products/self-reinforced-plastics.php)

Hans

[momentumv]

It is interesting, and I know they used it on Plastiki to support all the 2 liter bottles, so I was wondering how it would fare as a hull material in general. Yes, it's made by Aptiform.

The Plastiki actually used the srPET for the structural cross-beams, decking, cabin, and most of the hull.

It seems though that they had some difficulties with high temperatures (39 C) softening a few of the brackets, and that even in the best of situations the catamaran was not very stiff. (besides being nearly impossible to steer, lacking daggerboards)

Obviously, if the hull was not designed to have solid hulls (instead of a skeleton filled in with bottles, the result would be somewhat stiffer, especially if you had a metal frame to link the hulls.

The original question was about cost comparison, though. Unfortunately I don't know.