Study on structural design and analysis of 18 ft CFRP leisure boat

The purpose of this study is to develop a lightweight design model for an 18ft leisure boat. The existing leisure boat is manufactured using glass fiber-reinforced plastics (GFRP) material and the hand lay-up process. Carbon fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) was applied to the new design to reduce the boat’s weight, while an automated tape laying machine was applied to the lightweight boat’s manufacturing process to increase boat manufacturing productivity. The newly designed CFRP model is 25% lighter than the existing GFRP model. It was confirmed that the newly designed lightweight hull has sufficient structural integrity compared to the existing hull through the structural integrity evaluation by the FEA.