BTW , maybe Halletts are so popular cause Bud Bailey has been their chief designer in the past
Reply With QuoteHD is absolutely right on the descriptions. Good Job! BTW, I know very little about the actual materials, but I have hired the preeminent experts in the field to do the layup schedule for us.
What Dave was referring to is the fundamental differences I found between the different types of mat and the technology that is available.
The problem with woven mat is that it traps a ton of resin, and resin is non-structural for the most part. Without going too far into it, the glass fiber is strongest as a single strand that is straight, not bent. When you weave a set of strands, you gain a lot of strength over a single direction though, because a single direction layer will crack when pressure is applied width-wise. The problem with a weave, is you take away a ton of inherent strength in the glass by bending it (by weaving) and then making it hard with resin. It creates millions of little stress points. In addition, the little voids in the glass matrix created by the weave itself need to be filled with.... that's right. Non-structural resin. The average wet-layout hull construction has about a 67 percent resin volume... meaning obviously that only 33% of the volume of the boat is structural fiberglass. And, conversely about 50% of the total hull weight is non-structural, non-functional resin.
One way we are building parts of the Revolution is by using what Dave referred to as "uni-directional" glass. This is glass that all runs in parallel lines and is held together by magic it appears. There are no weaves, and nothing to affect it's linear strength and resistance to stretching. One of the best things about this method, is that each fiber, when taken on a microscopic level needs only a very small amount of resin to achieve maximum possible strength. This number reduces when you overdo the resin, as is very common in our favorite "Super sturdy" constructions. (Sorry Brent) Sometimes by half. If you have any questions regarding this fact, try to break a piece of fiberglass vs. a piece of resin. The resin will crack nearly effortlessly, regardless of thickness. A cored fiberglass sandwich will not. This single layer is not very strong for use in a panel unfortunately. It's "fiber volume" is extremely high though. Something around 80% fiber to 20% resin. Super light, super strong... in one direction. The solution to this is multiple layers of uni-directional glass, in a custom layed construction. You will still see the four axis construction, but it will be done with individual layers instead of one single handy piece of Quadraxial glass or Knytex. The end result is approximately 70% fiber volume when layed up like this, and 30% resin, for a huge weight savings, and monster strength increase. Weight is power, weight is fuel economy, strength is durability. This, combined with some proprietary layup stuff we are doing is going to result in an extremely stiff, very quiet, very durable hull layup.
Thanks for asking! hehe...
Time? (as in 4th dimension) 
