Once, marine craft designed for patrolling coasts, harbours, specialised installations and offshore were built in steel or aluminium. Today they are mostly of aluminium or reinforced plastics and are often twice as fast. In the battle between aluminium and composites, plastics have made most headway in modestly-sized craft, where the proportiion of curved to flat surfaces is high, while aluminium is often preferred for larger vessels. All the while, however composites are moving up-scale as they become thoroughly established in this high-performance sector of the professional boat market. Technology, as it has migrated into the fast patrol boat (FPB) field from small boats on the one hand and sizeable non-magnetic plastic minehunting ships on the other, has left behind the old bucket and brush glass/polyester days and become highly engineered. Now, carefully optimised composite material combinations allied with state-of-the-art infusion and other processes are resulting in marine craft capable of unprecedented performance, durability and service reliability.
Composites boost patrol craft performance
Reinforced Plastics ; 50 , 2 ; 18-22
2006
5 Seiten, 4 Bilder
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Englisch
Online Contents | 1994
Online Contents | 1994
Online Contents | 1996
Tema Archiv | 1993
|Special report:Brunei fast patrol craft
Kraftfahrwesen | 1979