[PSUBS-MAILIST] fiberglass as hull material

[Sean T. Stevrnson via Personal_Submersibles]

Fiber reinforced resin matrix composites cannot be modeled the same way as isotropic materials, owing to the strongly directional behaviour compared to the axes of curvature in pressure hull forms. The composites also introduce new modes of failure, such as interlayer delamination. That said, they can and have been used as pressure hull materials, but you generally will need to custom model the behavior with regard to your hull geometry. In a typical composite layup, the average material properties are approximately equal to the average material properties of the matrix and reinforcement in proportion to their respective volume fractions, but failure modes are still dictated by the weaker or more brittle material. Performance is also dependent on layer thickness and principal fiber orientation in each layer. Fiber reinforced composites will tend to fail catastrophically in a shear mode, versus yielding inelastically as with steel, so you need to be very confident in your strength
analysis to go this route. Unless you have a strong background in engineering, it may be more trouble than it's worth for a homebuilder.

Sean


On November 21, 2014 9:24:08 AM MST, roberto alvarez via Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>Hi did some one have information regarding the use of fiberglass cloth
>as
>hull material,  want replace the info on the calc
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>Personal_Submersibles mailing list
>Personal_Submersibles at psubs.org
>http://www.psubs.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/personal_submersibles
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.whoweb.com/pipermail/personal_submersibles/attachments/20141121/c683a529/attachment.html>