Dr. Philippe Noury, Det Norske Veritas, Høvik/Norwegen
Lightweight composite materials have a wide and compelling track record in tough and weight-critical marine applications ranging from high speed light craft to superstructure of naval vessels. They offer: - superior load carrying capacity and/or reduction of fuel consumption through major structural weight reduction - favourable maintenance costs due to better corrosion and fatigue properties - as well a wide variety of additional advantages, e.g. improving ship stability, surface flatness etc. These benefits were until recently not accessible to merchant shipping because of international SOLAS regulations strictly requiring structures to be made of non-combustible materials. However, a recent amendment to these regulations allows the use of composite materials today provided that adequate safety is demonstrated by a risk assessment and a fire engineering analysis. In response to this new situation, several international R&D projects (SAFEDOR, DE-LIGHT Transport among others) have been initiated to develop composite superstructure designs for various types of merchant ship and document adequate safety. This paper reports on the results from these projects. This work is part of several European research projects. The support of the 6th Framework Programme of the European Commission is gratefully acknowledged.