FRP in boat building

[rithul]

can anyone tell me the emphasis on FRP boat building in the design of pleasure crafts.


rithul

[Ad Hoc]

Can you narrow down your 'simplistic' question....

[Jeff]

Commonality in the market?

Doesn't require the maintenance that wood does (and very very little maintenance during the first 5 years - good for repeat buyers)

Easier and cheaper to create complicated and curved shapes and provide a perfect shiny finish than aluminum

Or?

[rithul]

i need tu know its advantage in design of boats. . .

[chris.dymond]

you can form any shape you like

[FAST FRED]

After the mold is created reliativly unskilled labor can perform most of the grunt work on building the hull.

The gel coat sprayer (if used) and supervisor will need some skills , but the rest of the crew can be taught to do good work in a 1/2 hour.

Molds can be purchased , custom made to your design.

Go to http://www.proboat.com/digital_issues.html and see what is offered.

FF

[Guest625101138]

Originally Posted by rithul

i need tu know its advantage in design of boats. . .

It is well suited to small production runs. The tooling required is not very expensive to get a high standard of finish.

Its mechanical, chemical and physical properties are well suited to the marine environment:
Good chemical resistance.
Resistance to weathering - both biological and chemical.
Good strength to weight ratio.
Good fracture toughness. (Particularly at high strain rates experienced with small planing craft.)
Single form hull construction with ability to easily selectively adjust thickness in higher loaded areas. (Welding of metals dramatically reduces their fatigue resistance. Butting different thickness metal plates creates stress raisers.)
Relatively easy to repair. (Most hardware stores stock fibre mat and polyester resin.)
Exposes hard wearing surface so will resist abrasion.

There are issues such as delamination and water absorption that damages the bonding. These can often be traced to poor construction practices.

If you make a table that sets out the mechanical properties, physical and chemical properties of common boat building materials such as wood, aluminum, steel, GFRP, carbon reinforced epoxy resin, etc along with price of tooling and raw materials you will get some idea of where it sits in the spectrum.