Marlow/Norsemen, working in their own in-house testing facility has designed, developed, perfected and implemented yet another stunning advance in state of the art yacht building. We developed the Full Stack Infusion© process for the complete hull or any component in the yacht manufacturing process, eliminating the possibility of contamination in secondary bonding processes in the important structures.
This exciting new development allows the entire structure to be infused, from outer skin coat, through coring to inner skin in one shot infusion. Moreover, Full Stack Infusion© saves approximately 2,000 lbs. in an average yacht, while providing far greater strength than could ever be achieved using common methods. This is a further development of the R.I.V.A.T.© (Resin Infused Vacuum Assisted Transfer) that Marlow/Norsemen had developed in-house, working with such industry titans as Corecel, DuPont, Swanson, Cook, and other industry leaders.
In the infusion process we have developed, we begin by cutting the reinforcement fabrics layers out in patterns geometrically shaped to fit our hull. These are then numbered and labeled so that we can place them exactly where they should go in the hull, deck or bulkhead and floor molds.
The resin remains in drums awaiting the proper time to be connected to a labyrinth of piping that is designed to carry the resin to a grid of flow transfer media. Essentially a highway for the resin to travel to the exact spot in the exact quantity.
All the fabrics are placed in their designated spots and covered with a heavy duty plastic film covering the flow media described above becoming the vacuum bagging.
The enormous vacuum pumps are then started, removing 100% of the air from beneath the bag. Sensitive leak detection devices are used to check the entire perimeter and seams for even a minute vacuum leak.
When all is well, a valve is opened and the resin swiftly begins to flow to the hull, deck or whatever part is being laminated. The piping is transparent so the flow is clearly visible. In less than one hour, an entire 38’ hull can be infused to a standard that is physically impossible in any other form of laminating. The perfect amount of resin has permeated every fiber but no thick pools of brittle excess can be seen in the laminate. The tremendous pressure exerted by the high volume vacuum pumps has squeezed the laminate to form an extremely hard laminate absolutely free of voids or excess.
Other advantages of this closed molding is that the workers are much happier and work more efficiently, as they are not required to wear bulky safety gear that restricts their ability to move freely or breath naturally. In infusion, simple rubber gloves are all that is necessary for protection. There are virtually no harmful fumes or chemicals released into the atmosphere and worker health is vastly improved. It does not require an M.I.T. Summa Cum Laude certificate to understand that a comfortable happy worker does a better job. The workers are happy to be part of a high technology portion of the factory production instead of relegated to mopping, rolling or spraying resin and fibers with dangerous chemicals filling the air.
Full Stack Infusion
