Applied technology Materials in design Winch coating endures an ocean race T
aking place over nine months, the Volvo Ocean Race covers 39,000 nautical miles through the world’s most treacherous seas and is described as an exceptional test of sailing prowess and human endeavour. Each entry has a sailing team of eleven that race day and night for up to 20 days at a time. No fresh food is taken onboard and each crew member will only take one change of clothes. The equipment used on these yachts, including the winches, therefore needs to be able to withstand the harsh corrosive marine environments.
“Aluminium winches typically found on this class of yacht display a rough finish to enhance grip and friction,” says Lou Varney, managing director of Diverse Yachts. “This surface is rapidly worn away, leading to poorer performance and a safety risk. One solution is to refurbish them but this takes time and is expensive.” As a solution, the winches this year will undergo trials with Zircotec’s extremely tough
ThermoHold based ceramic coating. The coating has been selected to minimise wear issues and to enable the crew to switch to harder and smaller ropes that are easier to handle and grip better. Additionally, the coating has provided a means of rapid resurfac- ing in preparation for the race. The coating can be applied to composite winches, even used winches, and in this case provides a very significant improvement to both grip and friction. The coating, which is applied by plasma spraying, has a temperature range from -5 to +40˚C and can withstand constant exposure to salt water. It is also said to provide excellent adhesion to the underlying substrate, irrespective of whether it is aluminium or carbon composite. This adhesion is crucial as one of the key benefits of applying ceramic is to use harder and smaller diameter ropes that put greater strain on the surface contact area.
The technology has been tested in national yachting competi- tions but the Volvo Ocean Race will be a true test of its ability. Zircotec
T: 01235 546050 Enter 204 Supporting liner clad pipe manufacture B
ased in Germany, Erndtebrücker Eisenwerk (EEW) produces steel pipes for the offshore industry, oil and gas treatment plants, power plant construction, pipelines, etc. In a recent project, EEW’s R&D team worked with Huntsman Advanced Materials and its distributors in Germany, Bodo Möller Chemie, to produce a new compound liner clad steel (CLC) pipe. The idea was to produce an economical product providing additional technical advantages to simple liner clad pipes, while serving to close the qual- ity gap between metal- lurgically bonded clad pipes and liner pipes. It was therefore decided that the com- pany’s standard facilities for pipe production would be used to create a composite plate com- pounded out of a CMn-steel plate and a corrosion resistant alloy (CRA) sheet, bonded together with a high performance epoxy. An epoxy adhesive was needed that would enable the cladding of steel plates with all commonly used
grades of CRA sheets, prior to forming and welding the heavy composite clad plates into pipes. After assembling the compos- ites for testing, the adhesives were hardened in a hot press at 180°C and differences in the resistance to shear and tensile forces observed. Araldite AV 4600 emerged as a winner, forming a strong and durable joint without any signs of disbanding. It also displayed the highest shear strength values. This is a multipurpose, one component heat curing thixotropic paste. It offers chemical resistance, impact strength at down to -40°C, and is heat resistant to 120°C. To produce the composite clad plate that forms the
CLC pipe, EEW used AV 4600 to bond the CMn-steel plate and CRA sheet together in combination with resistance spot welding. The bond has been proven to be strong enough to form pipe diameters even less than 180mm.
Huntsman Advanced Materials
www.huntsman.com/ advanced_materials
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Enter 6 OCTOBER 2011 Design Solutions 1971-2011
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