Under an ONR grant, Lehigh University recently designed, built and tested a 6-meter long (20-ft) model of a new hybrid ship hull concept. The hull consisted of a steel frame which was closed out with FRP composite sandwich panels. The steel frame was designed to provide strength and high stiffness of the hull girder, whereas the lightweight composite panels were designed to take the local sea loads as well as shear loads. This hull concept has a number of potential benefits, including light weight and high stiffness, easy outfitting of the ship before the composite panels are attached, simple mounting of heavy equipment to the steel frame rather than to composites, and simple incorporation of controlled blowout panels to release internal blast pressure.
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