Standfast Yachts 64'
Vacuum infusion of hull and deck

Standfast Yachts and Polyworx have jointly developed Vacuum Infusion technology for the Standfast 24 meter carbon/epoxy sailing yacht. In order to ensure that all the process knowledge developed in this project was effectively transferred Standfast decided to license the RTM-Worx software and hire Polyworx for some additional advice. Even though the hull and deck were the first large parts infused by Standfast, because of the simulations, they were already experienced before the valves were opened.

Infusion of the hull

>>  Infusion of the hull - Click here for animation and all the pictures

Even though the geometry of the hull is not very complex, infusion was not easy, in particular because the total height is 3.5 meters. This means that 95% of the resin is infused in 50% of the total time, the last 5% of the resin is slowed down by a combination of long flow paths and gravity and needs an equal amount of time! This was no surprise, because the simulations clearly indicated what could be expected.

The image above shows the results from the simulations; the pictures were taken during the infusion. For more pictures, and an animation of the simulation click on the image above or click here.

The infusion strategy was optimised for the following two primary goals:

• Minimise the total injection time (make sure the mould gets filled);
• Make sure the flow front arrives at the keel base with an elliptic shape.

The second goal is important to avoid lots of small air traps on the symmetry line where the two fronts meet (and the front in the carbon lags behind!). Those two objectives are contradictive, so we had to settle for a compromise.

Infusion of the deck

From the infusion of the deck, four series of photos are available, click on one of the links below to view them:

>>  Detail at the start of infusion
>>  Rear view of the deck
>>  Infusion of front part
>>  Miscellaneous pictures

From a comparison of the simulation results and the actual infusion (from the photographs below), you can see that the accuracy of the predictions is very good.

The injection strategy was primarily based on the notion that resin should flow from bottom to top, e.g. injection gates at the lowest point and vacuum at the highest point. Obviously, the drawback is forming of air traps due to racetracking through the sharp corners (as it turned out, this could not be avoided - even though the reinforcement was very carefully applied). Anyway, this was easily solved during the injection and the deck was very well impregnated.

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