Hybrid Combination Product Between Aluminum Can with Reinforcement Fiberglass for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

Composite materials have been a subject of interest with various special types of advanced materials during the last decades. However, increasing demand in marine industry for high-performance and lightweight structures have stimulated a strong trend towards the development of refined models for hybrid composite materials known as fibre metal laminates [1]. Fibre metal laminates are hybrid composites built up from aluminium can and fibre reinforced plastics. GLARE is the best example to compare that has been introduced in aircraft industry. Aluminium layers and fibre reinforced laminates can be bonded by mechanical and adhesive techniques. Based on these approaches, the adhesive technique with plain aluminium sheets is used to determine its effect as a fibre metal laminate [2]. The design orientation used had 7 layers where the first layer was an aluminium can and then laminated with 2 layers of 430 chopped strand mat (CSM). Next, it was combined with woven roving followed by a CSM and then woven roving and lastly we applied 2 sheets of CSM. Tests were conducted to determine the mechanical properties of the fibre metal laminate by tensile testing and the results were tabulated [3]. This testing followed the ASTM standard which is D3039s. The weight optimization of fibre metal laminates with the combination is lighter than laminated wood.