Supreme Hull Technology

Supreme composite hull technology

Kockums has concentrated on advancing Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP) composite technology for hull construction because it offers superior advantages compared with conventional steel or aluminium hulls. Unique to Kockums is the FRP composite sandwich construction we have developed to bring out the best in this technology.

Essentially, a cross-section of the hull comprises a lightweight foam core sandwiched between two stiff skins of laminate. The core material increases the bending strength and stiffness with minimal weight contribution.

Several advantages

The major advantages of Kockums composite hull technology
compared with conventional steel-hull ships can besummarized as:

• Low weight – compared with traditional shipbuilding material, FRP sandwich composite has half the structural weight typically 50%). This enables smaller machinery to be used without loosing performance. Low weight can be translated into increased payload speed or operational
  range.
• Versatility – FRP sandwich composite is easily handled and readily formed into many shapes and sizes to satisfy the demands of marine design and construction engineers for high-speed and high-displacement ships, as well as submarines.
• Long lifecycle – Testing of 30-year old FRP samples from the Viksten minesweeper with a FRP hull launched in 1974 indicate that the average lifecycle of this type of hull is much more than 30 years.
• Simple maintenance – FRP composite sandwiches are straightforward to maintain and repair. The Swedish, Danish and Singapore navies have experienced 80% less hull maintenance with FRP hulls, which translates into 30% lower total ship maintenance costs.
• Flexible production – most FRP sandwich composite panels are manufactured by Kockums using vacuum infusion. This results in high-performance laminates with low void content and high fibre content, and with both sandwich skins being produced simultaneously for efficiency.

To give just one example of customer confidence in FRP sandwich composite technology from Kockums, the Danish Navy has, after 20 years of experience with Kockums FRP hulls, ordered a new generation of ships incorporating hulls based on this technology.

Two other key advantages of Kockums’ FRP sandwich composite – supreme shock resistance and signature reduction (stealth) are presented separately as their own technologies. 

Kockums composite technology used in Japan

Universal Shipbuilding Corporation in Yokohama, Japan has signed a contract (March 9th 2009) with Japans Ministry of Defence for the next generation minesweeper to be built with GRP hulls utilising Kockums technology through a transfer of technology (ToT) license agreement. For Kockums the licence agreement with USC involves design training and review, production drawing reviews and production supervision on site in Japan.

Page updated Monday, November 23, 2009.