Elastic/Deformable/Rubber ship model?

Hi guys, I'm new to the forums.

I wanted to know if you guys ever heard of ship models that can be deformed, like if they are made of rubber or some elastic material. The reason that I want to get one of these is to better illustrate the motions of a ship, the bending of the ship, etc., to me or to colleagues.

 

Welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy it.
I guess you are talking about a virtual model generated with any CAD program. In that case the solution is simple. Suppose you've defined the model through a series of cross sections. Moving any one of these sections, the model surface will be modified to adapt to the new position of the section you moved.
The deformation experienced by the model will never be the actual hull since the stiffness of this one will never be equal to that of the virtual surface. But it can perfectly serve for your explanations.

 

One simple solution could be to create a very simple ship 3-D model made of 3 or 4 developable surfaces.
Print the outlines of the developed surfaces on A3 paper sheets and then carbon-copy them to a plastic sheet.
Cut them, glues them, assemble the ship and there it is - a plastic deformable ship model.

You could for example also make two identical models, one with and the other without the deck (or superstructure), to better illustrate their structural contribution.

 

Thanks for your replies.

daiquiri got it right. I was talking about a real model, one that I could walk around with to show people and explain motions of (and on) a ship. Unfortunately, the only ship models I find to buy on the internet are of rigid ships (and normally very old ships that don't look a lot like the ones today).

I was hoping I could find some place to buy, but maybe daiquiri's suggestion is better: just build it myself. I hope it doesn't suck in the end.

 

Back BPC, you used to make flexurally equivalent acrylic models of ship structure. You would then load it then illuminate it with polarized light to show the stress concentrations. Rather subjective, but good for showing stress concentrations caused by poor design stiffness matching. Right up there with hot wire (resistance) truss and pipe flow modeling: high tech old school.

 

There are soft polymers that can be poured into a mold and would work well for your application. Ideally, you would then print a grid over it to show the deformations.
http://www.smooth-on.com/Urethane-Rubber-an/c6_1117/index.html

 

You can actually 3D print some 'soft' material polymers. Not quite sure of the Shore rating but adequate. To make Daiquiri's excellent suggestion of a developable surface shape easy to make, just plot on paper then Spraymount the paper onto thin ABS sheet, cut out, and glue together to get a reasonably quick model.

Alternatively print/make a hard shape and cast back in silicone(s) with the tool being fairly rigid. A lot more work, though you could get repeats easily.