• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
• /
• v.35 no.3
• /
• pp.309-316
• /
• 2011

Canoes are usually made from wood or FRP. However, today environment-friendly materials are preferred, and hulls made of FRP are prohibited in some countries. Polyethylene can be recycled and so is suitable for synthetic canoe construction. We used 3D Boat-Design to determine the hydrostatic properties of the canoe. Flow-structure coupled analysis was performed using ANSYS Workbench R12.1. The hull pressure and passenger weight were considered as canoe loading factors. The key parameters for the canoe are the design variables. The constraints are as follows: (1) The maximum stress must not exceed 50% of the polyethylene yield stress; and (2) the canoe weight must not exceed 50 kg. The optimal structural conditions were obtained by the response optimization process. The components of the canoe hull were manufactured from polyethylene pipes and joined by thermal fusion methods. Tests showed that the polyethylene canoe had better performance than existing canoes.