Serial Resin Infusion Boat Hull

General Composites Discussions Engineering Talk
#1

I’ve been scouring Youtube for resin infusion vids of boat hulls. Most mfgr’s infuse the inside of a boat hull from the bottom of the keel up to the gunnels. There is one particular video showing what the mfgr calls a ‘Serial Infusion’. See it here.

http://youtu.be/_J6SGZZolbU

It got me thinking. On a large infusion there’s always a lot of risk involved, not just the money, but the requirement for a consistent fully infused part. If i infuse the inside of my boat hull, 31-1/2’ long by 10’ wide I’ll have to cover just over 600 sq ft in one pull. By dividing up the pull into smaller segments I can better control the results I think.

I put together a crude animation to illustrate what I’m thinking about. I do apologize it’s not Pixar quality!

http://youtu.be/N4HN8A16WzI

All feed lines, spiral wrap etc. will be 1/2". I may not actually use valves but just kink the feed & vacuum lines as required.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? Always glad to have some feedback from anyone.

#2

I find it very interesting, my partner had also thought about the possibilty (certainty I would say) that it must work and bring some benefit, but on the other hand no one that I know of is doing it that way …

#3

I watched this video a while back, I thought it looked much simpler than the widely used “fishbone” layout for a larger infusion. Also, if something crazy happened during the infusion - like maybe you dumped all your epoxy on the ground or something. It seems like it would be easy to stop the infusion, let it cure then re-bag the uninfused section and start it up again. If something like that happened with the fishbone layout, it would be much harder to do anything with it.

Again, complete novice here - so take my comments with a grain of salt.

:slight_smile:

#4

I did this with a canoe and it turned out really well

#5

Did you document it Canyon? I’d like to see how you did it.

Rick

#6

Sometimes lager boats are devided in to squares, and infused perimeter inwards. Quite easy and almost foolproof

#7

f

I have some pictures on my personal webpage that hopefully will help. It was pretty simple with only four inlets running the length of the canoe. We started with the two in the middle and once the resin reached the next inlet we opened those up and clamped the middle ones.

Let me know if you want more pictures

http://ravinkumar.com/wpportfolio/projects/fiberglass-canoe/

#8

Regarding comments from Susho “Sometimes larger boats are divided into squares, and infused perimeter inward”. I know this works VERY WELL when the hull is INVERTED and you are infusing from the perimeter UP (Fram). Can this be used when the hull is right side up? In that case you’d be infusing DOWN. I’m under the impression that can cause problems, which is why I’m interested in the Serial Infusion method.

As always, your comments would be greatly appreciated!

db

#9

Nice site Canyon, top job :slight_smile:

#10

For the canoe infusion the inlets were at the bottom of the boat and the resin went up against gravity. This worked well for a small boat but I can see why it can be an issue with larger boats.

#11

I have done this type of infusion many times, and it’s very common for large parts, because you just can’t get resin to flow for 10 feet easily! let alone for 30+ feet from one infusion line.

You don’t have to close any vent lines, like you have in your animation. If anything, keep ONE vacuum line open, the one at the front of the boat. This will pull the resin along the length of the boat (one infusion line at a time of course)…having infusion lines running from side to side, but having vacuum line along the side might not work as you expect…the flow front will NOT go straight down the length of the boat as you have shown.

But yes, series infusions are used all over.

http://imgur.com/a/FAjJU
This one was small, but because it was all unidirectional and thick, I needed it to go faster than just one side to the other. Vents are on EACH end.

#12

Hi guys Im looking to build my first boat have a academy f1 tunnel at the moment Im after some plans for a tunnel hull, any help would be apriciated. Thanks