Sci-fi topic: Shall we one day be growing our boats?

Daiquiri we are talking star wars fuzzy future here.(not real world). I can't see myself in a boat being eaten by the fish and other biotics.

 

have you seen the sci-fi series called "farscape" they have a "grown" space ship. kind of cool idea.

How about these living bridges of India? took up to 500 years to train the tree to grow into a bridge. If you had something that grew fast, and made tough, rot resistant wood, you could force it to grow into the shape you need. But building it the conventional way would be faster and likely much cheaper. Interesting idea though.

 

Brilliant pictures there Petros.

I would be happy to have a 'magic mold' where the epoxy creeps up the sides and wets out the fabric without any brushes , sprayers or setup of vacuum stuff.

I think there is probably a lot of innovation still to be found here.

I understand that some epoxy only cures under exposure to UV light.

Could we have a container of this Epoxy, and a mini UV light that is computer controlled, hardening a pattern of the epoxy ?

 

A filament winding machine can do the job. Look at the 5 axis filamint winding machine as it tirelessly spin a fabric tape around a mold, twisting and turning as it goes to build up the required thickness. You can usually see such demo in composite shows.

Still too expensive for boats but the technology is there now.

 

Like this, but on a bigger scale ?



You could make a mould that was also the deck, and do it in one big wind. How strong would that be ?

 

It would be very strong because of very high fiber/resin ratio. However, you couldn't orient the fibers in any direction you want. You'd be obliged to have them in helix or quasi-helix shapes, like in the video. So the range of shapes doable with this technique is pretty limited. Excellent for pressure vessels and torsion-carrying bars.

 

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...into-boat-framing-component-shapes-33340.html dealt with this topic some time back.

Tiny Turnip contributed this:
among others.

rxcomposite also contributed some very interesting photos:

 

You tube has some interesting videos on 60 foot windmill blade.

The 5 axis can be programmed to make a portion of the panel thicker than the rest. It can be very strong and light in the sense that there are no fiber overlaps, no breaks. The resin proportion can also be controlled, approaching that of vacuum infusion.

It can also be cored, with a break in the filament winding process.

While it is true that it is good for pressure vessels because the fibers are always in tension (fibers are not good in compression), preformed frames and stiffener can be glued inside after the part has cured. Aerospace uses that technology. I have seen a picture of a front end of an aircraft that is 100% filament wound.

So one day, we can have a boat knitted to specification like the way grandma used to do.

 

If I remember correctly the spacecraft in the book "The Mote in God's Eye" were organic.

 

'Grown' boats have been in use around the Pacific for thousands of years. They are called dugouts. Readily available, insulate you from the water temperature (hot, or cold), robust, and unsinkable.
And then the Arctic has boats (Kayaks, Umiaks, etc) sheathed with animal skins ("hey, mom, was that Dad I just saw go by?") but that's another chapter.

 

Here is something more complicated than that. "Grown" timbers. The traditional way of boatbuilding by Arabs.

 

Makes me think of the movie "Fifth Element" where the scientist recreated the 5th element (Milla Jovovich) using the DNA code from what was left of her (hand). The machine "stitched" the rest of the form. Well, we are far from that but the 3D printing technology is much closer.

If you can align the metal whiskers to the orientation of the stress using a weak magnetic field, then solidify the resin filled void areas, then it can be done. It is important that the fibers/whisker align because you can lose about 70% of the strength by misaligned fibers. If randomly aligned, it becomes just like a typical CSM mat, low in strength. It cannot be done with a typical glass fiber or carbon as it is non magnetic.

I think you have something "smoking" in that idea.

 

Boats grown organically? Engineer 'em to taste like bacon.

Now we're talking.

 

I agree that, if the technology was available, we all would rather "grow" Milla Jovovich than some stupid boat hull with that technique.

I was right to ask about some more comments on that idea (http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...e-day-growing-our-boats-45661.html#post601679), so thanks for getting back to it. I was not talking about magnetism. The idea was to create metal filaments through spark-welding the adjacent whiskers along the electric path. The path is determined by the position of + and - electrodes.

 

You are on the right track by having the metal whiskers welded to form a longer strand. In composite macro mechanics theory, they have the critical fiber length formula Lf=DST where
Lf= critical fiber length
D= diameter of fiber
S= strength of matrix bond or shear strength of matrix
T= tensile strength of fiber

From this another formula is used to determine the Ultimate Tensile Strength of the composite. The Lf for many fiber matrix formulation is about 2000 micrometers.

I assume during the welding process, near surrounding will heat up promoting curing of the matrix without the need for UV light. Of course, I am just assuming.