MANUFACTURING A BOAT HULL SAMPLE USING COMPOSITE MATERIALS

The manufacture of hulls for small boats requires a thorough knowledge of the hull manufacturing field, hull materials, and the damage that hulls may encounter during maritime navigation (such as cracks or wear caused by shock or collision, etc.). Materials such as wood, aluminum, stainless steel, and composite materials are used to manufacture these hulls. This work was interested in the manufacturing of layered composite materials; these are lightweight, less expensive, more hermetic, and more resistant. The main objective of this work is to manufacture a part of the hull of a small boat using composite materials. Also, testing the mechanical strength of the manufactured sample constitutes a second objective of this work. In this work, a boat hull sample was manufactured using composite materials (glass fiber mat E-type with polyester resin). Calculation of fiber and resin quantities was performed to manufacture a sample with a thickness equal to 4 mm. A visual analysis of the defects obtained on the manufactured sample, and the identification of their causes, were performed in this work. Several mechanical tests were performed to measure the permeability, hardness, and Young's modulus of the tested specimens. The results obtained show that the mechanical properties of the layered sample respect maritime safety rules and the rigour required during boat construction.