Developing liquid acrylic resin-based composites for marine renewable energy and ship building applications

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Composites have been used for many years in small recreational and high-performance boat industries. Their widespread acceptance in the boat industry is due to their light weight, vibration damping properties, corrosion resistance, high impact strength, design flexibility, low fabrication costs and ease of maintenance and repair. The use of lightweight composite materials in constructing larger marine structures is increasing in recent times. Ther-mosetting composites, the usual candidates for constructing boats, are non-recyclable in nature and their use in larger marine structures is not a justifiable solution. This will add the environmental burden and is not de-sired. These issues are also causing problems for the usage of composites in marine renewable energy structures such as tidal and wind turbine blades.We need to develop next generation of recyclable, lightweight composite materials that would be a more sustain-able solution for the environment. Newly introduced liquid thermoplastic acrylic resin based composites are a po-tential candidate for such applications. This liquid resin is processed in the same way as the traditional thermoset-ting resins used in boat building and wind turbine blade industries, features high mechanical properties, but is re-cyclable unlike thermosetting composites. This recyclability can provide an answer to the major issue of the treat-ment of end-of-life composites.The construction of large marine structures with liquid thermoplastic resin based composite materials represents a challenging task. This project will focus on potential development of liquid acrylic resin based composites for ma-rine and ship building and for renewable energy structures. This will involve manufacturing acrylic matrix compo-sites and studying their physical and mechanical properties. This will also involve studying the fibre/matrix interface in dry condition as well as after seawater immersion. There will be investigations on the welding/joining and repair-ing potential of this new composite system. The fire resistance property will be investigated in collaboration with Fire Safety Engineering Laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. Finally, a demonstrator will be manufactured in conjunction with industry.