This paper describes the development work done by a consortium of four private companies and a R&D laboratory to develop a lighter and stronger canoe with the use of a unique tailored fabric. Composite materials can offer many great benefits such as, greater performance, improved stiffness, weight reduction and durability. In order to materialize these improvements, expensive materials are often selected, while manufacturers are required to hire and train specialized labor to properly place and align the fibers in the highly stressed area. These costly manufacturing steps are not aligned with the low-cost requirements that designers-buyers are looking for. Tailored fabric or "Smart Hybrid" is the new technology selected to enhance material properties in a single processing step. The weaver is modulating the reinforcement properties by changing the fiber type and architecture along the length of the canoe to achieve maximum impact resistance, improved rigidity in key strategic areas and weight reduction. The paper presents the critical path followed to design the canoe. At first, a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) was performed to evaluate the stiffness requirement of the canoe hull and to calculate the ideal material properties. Then, the proper fibers were selected to optimize the rigidity and to lower the overall weight. Resin compatibility with the different fibers was validated and tested in shear, tension and impact to confirm the performance. All these tests results were compiled to design the "Smart Hybrid" reinforcement. The weaver was then given the fabric performance requirements to properly sequence the weaving machine to produce a unique fabric that the molder could use in the same way as the usual plain weave fabric. The result is a unique canoe made of 4 different fibers, exhibiting unique impact performance, reduced weight and improved rigidity using the same manufacturing steps used with plain weave.
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