Low-cost ship construction in composite materials

The world-wide demand for faster and increased payload military and commercial vessels over the last 5-10 years has heightened the interest in composite materials within the marine industry. In the same timescale, composite materials and low cost fabrication processes available to shipbuilders have also evolved considerably. The intention of this paper is to highlight, from a shipbuilder's perspective, the main producibility issues to be addressed by marine researchers, designers and fabricators when considering new applications for composites and in particular to review the prospects for the application of composites to larger marine vessels where, due mainly to cost considerations, steel has traditionally been the preferred material.