Caracol 3D prints 6m catamaran in one piece in 160 hours

The Italian production specialist Caracol, in collaboration with the Spanish boat developer V2 Group, has printed a functional monolithic catamaran with a length of 6 m in one piece using an industrial 3D printer. According to Caracol, the boat is said to be so stable that it meets maritime requirements. The printing process, using a Heron-AM-based robotic printing platform, took a total of 160 hours.

The conventional construction of a boat hull can be quite time-consuming. If adjustments are necessary, new templates may have to be created to produce a hull, for example from GRP, layer by layer using a lamination process. Additive manufacturing processes, such as industrial 3D printing, can accelerate the production of ship hulls for small and medium-sized boats. If changes to the design are necessary, this is simply done on the digital template. The hull then only needs to be reprinted.

Caracol and the V2 Group have demonstrated that this works with a catamaran. The hull was designed as a single-piece construction so that it could also be printed in one piece. The designers considered which material was suitable for this and how post-processing could be carried out. This is because the boat was to be produced in series in marine quality. This should also be possible in different sizes, which at the same time places special demands on the structural durability of the hull construction. Regulatory requirements must also be observed.

In addition, the printing of such a boat hull should be possible as quickly as possible, without wasting material, to burden the environment as little as possible compared to conventional boat building methods.

Printing system with robotic arm

A Heron-400 print head, guided by a 6-axis robot arm, was used for printing the boat. The print head and the feeding system, which dries and supplies the printing material in pellet form, are proprietary developments by Caracol.

Numerous tests and optimization work were necessary before printing the 6 m long boat. Due to the considerable size of the boat hull and its complex geometry, the design, and slicing effort was high. However, these optimization efforts for printing only need to be carried out once for a boat model in the development phase. In series production, no further adjustments are necessary after the optimization work is completed.

The boat hull was printed in a single, uninterrupted process. This ensured that the hull forms a seamless, monolithic structure. Recycled polypropylene with a 30 percent glass fiber content was used as the material. The process was completed in 160 hours. The two companies provided no information about the drive components used to complete the boat.

(olb)