Materials for a small catamaran? (30 cm x 30 cm square max)

[Roc Arandes]

Hey! I'm an EPFL student in 1st year, and we are creating an amphibious vehicle which has to work with the strenght of a spring, so we decided to give him the form of a Catamaran. The thing is that it cannot overpass 1kg, so we prefer not to use aluminium. For the hulls we decided to use High Density PET (used in Kayaks), but for the sheet that keeps the 2 hulls together and supports the Spring Guidance, we wanted to use some light plastic Material (because the ship has to float) but with good flexural strengh. We thought about using Nylon 6/6, the sheet is about 4mm width. It is an appropiate material? To put the hulls and the sheet together we had to use Heli-Coils to be able to put screws in it, but i recently found Nylon Screws, if we use them do we need to put Helicoils in it, or if both materials are plastic there is no need?

THANK YOU!

 

[RaulTheUCSCSlug]

Well check out the density of the nylon somewhere online. You should look into buoyancy. Since weight doesn't contribute as much to floating as you may think. (Think of how massive boats float!?) If you can find a way to put a balloon under the nylon, probably only half way full, I think it would be a light weight way to have it float.

The heli-coils are used so that there is a thread to put the screws in. If your screw is like the "point-y" ones, and not the flat at the end ones, then you should be fine. You could also put a screw then on the other side just put a bolt and washer to keep it put.