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The new CarboCAT by Kockums AB
Kockums AB, Karlskrona, Sweden, is already receiving orders for its new CarboCAT MPV23. The new catamaran will be the first unit in a series that replaces aluminum with composite material.
This new generation of CarboCATs, which is scheduled for its first delivery in August 2010, will be equipped with a hull and superstructure made of carbon fiber. “The new material will allow us to lower weight and reduce fuel consumption,” says Lars Tedehammar, senior vice president of Kockums. “The boat will need less power from the engine to reach the same performance, which will mean approximately 20 percent savings in fuel consumption per vessel.”
Kockums wanted to create a boat that would be usable (ideally, 365 days a year), easily maneuverable to allow safe docking and able to handle heavy sea conditions. After all, the CarboCat will be used within the wind energy market for work boats on offshore wind turbines, and offshore wind parks where wind rages the hardest.
The new vessels will also be used as rescue boats and as ferries for local transportation within the numerous archipelagos found within Scandinavia, or as an open sea trafficker within areas such as the Mediterranean.
Tedehammar states that composites were chosen over other material because of the material’s lightweight properties. “If you compare composite material with others, such as aluminum, it is possible to reduce the weight by approximately 30 percent and even more when compared with steel,” he says. “And if the vessel is lighter it will affect the life cycle cost. If we need to use less energy to power the boats, we can use smaller engines with preserved speed and therefore have the ability to load more cargo per load.”
When drafting the plans for a new CarboCAT, composites not only won out in weight savings, but in maintenance costs as well. “Compared with metallic materials, composites don’t have fatigue problems; therefore, using composites enables us to reduce maintenance costs by up to 25 percent,” says Tedehammar. “Composites also give us the ability to make complex design solutions at relatively low cost by the way the parts are manufactured, not to mention its forgiving nature in structural damage.”
But there are a few disadvantages to a new composite model, Tedehammar states. These include a composite’s inability compared to steel to handle local pressures or loads in a sandwich solution. Yet Tedehammar explains this can be overcome by using a different inlay or a better quality core.
