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In the future project portfolio of Oceanic-Creations is the Maya-Pyramid Hotel, which will be located at the Maya Coast in Mexico. Illustration: Oceanic-Creations AB

Composite material opens new construction philosophy

By Ronny Nordell,
Managing Director,
Oceanic-Creations AB
e-mail: ronny.nordell @occt.eu

Once upon a time … the Swedish Navy was building their ships with oakwood from the forests in Blekinge, a county in the south of Sweden. Over the years several major developments have occurred in both shipbuilding and material technologies, which replaced the wooden merchant ships. The wood has been replaced by steel and/or aluminium; the sails have been replaced, first by steam engines and later with diesel engines.

In the beginning of the 1970’s Kockums, a Swedish naval shipyard, began using composite material to build ships for the Swedish Navy. Kockums has developed and refined the technology and is today considered as one of the world’s leading companies in this field.

For thirty-five years the development and the production technology was kept secret and the knowledge of how to produce large constructions in composite was hidden from the civilian world until last year. In November 2006, the Swedish entrepreneurial company Oceanic-Creations AB, and Kockums signed an agreement that gave Oceanic-Creations the exclusive worldwide rights to use the composite material and the construction technology for civilian applications.
The founders of Oceanic-Creations AB are the entrepreneurs Ronny and Mariela Nordell together with Professor Christer Karlsson. Ronny Nordell worked at the Karlskrona shipyard in the 1970’s. Mr Nordell realizing the potential of the composite material for civilian applications tried in 1986 to acquire a permit to use the composite material. However, he was turned down at the time since the material was considered a military secret. At the second attempt, in 2002, Oceanic-Creations were able to reach an agreement giving the company the right to develop civilian applications which as mentioned above was formalized with Kockums in November 2006.

It is interesting to note that when Kockums developed the material, more than 30 years ago, which now is called OCCT (Oceanic-Creations Composite Technology), they certainly focused on issues like strength, weight, durability and similar characteristics important for military conditions and perhaps less on environmental aspects like insulation, energy conservation, recycling and ecological balance, virtues that today are main issues and included “free of charge” in the Oceanic-Creations constructions of today.

New views on construction
There is and has always been a huge preference for waterfront living but with the limited construction technology available until today there has been too many obstacles, related to the demanding environment of living on or near water, to make such a vision realistic in a large scale.

Also in the light of the effects of the imminent climate changes, higher temperatures, unpredictable storms and more violent flooding situations, the shipping and construction industry are facing new strict regulations for energy conservation and safety.

Regulations that will become stricter over time will cause insurance costs and the running and maintenance costs to climb higher and higher if new technologies are not implemented.

The shipping industry is one of the most conservative industries existing today, and they are very careful when it comes to untraditional methods to improve the construction of ships or the choice of nonconformist materials. One basic reason for that is of course the requirements set by the classification societies which in many cases unequivocally specify steel as construction material as a non-negotiable condition to issue the necessary certificate.

The technology of OCCT
The Kockums military construction technology, transformed into civilian use, has the benefit of being fully proven and reliable by military development and testing under the most demanding circumstances.

The virtually indestructible composite panels provide invincible safety advantages for most forms of applications, such as superstructures of ships, as well as living quarters for the oil industry. The highly effective built-in insulation that the OCCT offers is a unique feature, which, to a very high degree, eliminates the sound and vibrations from the power plants or any other installed equipment.

The sandwich panels are produced in eight standard versions where the most demanding qualities are the carbon fibre reinforced single skin mainly suitable for aviation purposes and the most common version is the sandwich panel formed by two composite skins, one on each side of a core of insulation material.

For applications of ships and other constructions located on water the composite skins are made out of a glass reinforced composite, where the lamination of the reinforcement and the composite recipe are the crucial elements. In an environment of high humidity, the insulation material traditionally is a source for problems, such as fungus and bad aroma. This in turn causes a need for sophisticated ventilation systems and great efforts in maintenance.

To avoid those common inconveniences OCCT has integrated two structural composite skins with a core of insulation material between the skins. This creates a compact construction panel without pores and with an insulation core of closed single cells.

The panels totally eliminate all the condensation and its negative effects; it will also create a panel with tremendous insulation that makes it usable for all types of climates, from the coldest arctic environment to the tropical heat.
The new European Union building norms, effective from July 1, 2007, outline the maximum energy consumption per sqm for land based constructions. These changes will dramatically change the conditions for the construction industry. The search for new construction materials are imminent and crucial for most applications no matter if it is at sea, coastal or on shore, we will see a new world emerge.

In the process of the transformation from the military composite to the civilian, Oceanic-Creations have performed extensive analysis for the characteristics of OCCT and its practical effect in the construction of ships and housing.
The results are very encouraging and indicate up to 70 per cent energy savings for apartment constructions in a marine environment. The need of energy consuming climate control equipment will be minimized in OCCT construction, thus less noisy and costly.

The OCCT allows for a complete integration of the different needs for tanks, storage and cooling/freezing facilities. The freshwater, fuel and other tanks can be integrated in the hull and are virtually maintenance free. As the composite material is inert, the bacterial growth is negligible as well as the survival rate of existing spoors, which frequently creates problems through the fuel for the power plant engines.

Classification societies
Some classification societies are becoming more open, compared to others. They are becoming more aware of the need to adapt to the world of today and they are educating themselves in new technologies and its possible positive effects in modern shipbuilding.

One of the more insightful classification societies is the Germanischer Lloyd. They have been studying the use of composite materials in shipbuilding and the representative of Germanischer Lloyd in Oslo, the Business Development Manager for Scandinavia, Mr Ronnie Westerman states that:

“OCCT is the upcoming material for many different constructions. It will be an important replacement for many of the conventional materials used today in marine applications. However, OCCT cannot replace steel etc. in every application but may very well to an increasingly degree do so in the future. It is a very beneficial material, exceptionally well suited for design and construction”.
“So far, tests and experience has shown that when the material is applied in the correct way, the safety and strength requirements are met and OCCT is not inferior to any other material, on the contrary, it seems to be the opposite”.
“OCCT is a material of the future”, Mr Westerman concluded.

The recent and international climate conference in Thailand stated in their final document that the “culprit” in energy consumption is things we cannot live without, our living quarters, apartments, villas and other forms of housing. The quality of energy planning is so bad that the pollution caused by heating or cooling of apartments and houses is exceeding the pollution caused by cars and other means of mass transportation.

The low weight, the amazing strength, the non-corrosive material and the extreme insulation property makes OCCT practically unbeatable for construction of superstructures of ships and offshore lodging. The virtually non-existing need for maintenance is not only a cost saving feature, it also prevents degeneration of a ship by corrosion or problems with galvanic elements between steel and aluminium.

The Visby Class Corvette is considered to be the first vessel with high operational and fully developed stealth technology and is deemed the multi-purpose surface combatant of the future.

Markets
The market for the OCCT seems endless – the material will be used in a number of different products and markets. Some of the more important sectors identified are certain modules in cruise ships, superstructures in different types of commercial ships and of course the hotel and resort industry sectors together with the housing sector.

Before the OCCT, those constructions were more or less unfeasible due to the problems related to the humidity and the massive maintenance requirements of constructions built with steel or concrete.

The possibility to build new traditional hotels close to a beach or a shoreline is however very limited in many parts of attractive areas. Monaco and Marbella are typical examples where it is impossible to build new large hotels. New restrictions are limiting the possibility to build hotels or other forms of construction closer than 200 metres from the shoreline.

Marine constructions offer new unexplored opportunities for buildings right by the beach close to locations of preference to people. Large international events like the Olympic Games, symposiums and culture events require facilities that meet the new building requirements for hotels, restaurants, convention centres and congress halls.

In many big cities like London and New York, it is nearly impossible to erect new buildings due to limited space. Marine constructions will create new opportunities; conserve resources as well as the environment.

Production
The production plant of Oceanic-Creations is located at the previous Flotski Arsenal Shipyard – one of the pioneers in the Bulgarian shipbuilding history located at the Varna Lake close to the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria. A joint venture between Oceanic-Creations and the Bulgarian State has given the shipyard a new role for the future development of the region.

Oceanic-Creations will, at full capacity, engage up to 1,500 employees in Varna. With a total land area of 140,000 sqm Oceanic-Creations has access to more than 300 metres of quay with a water depth of six metres and under roof facilities of 20,000 sqm.

Projects
The perhaps most eye-catching project in the future project portfolio of Oceanic-Creations is the Maya-Pyramid Hotel, to be located at the Maya Coast in Mexico. The hotel part over main deck is designed as Maya Pyramids and has an exterior made out of natural stone of the same kind as the Mayans used for their pyramids.

Other projects that take form are the office concepts, based on the same outstanding OCCT as other projects. The “base” for Oceanic-Creations office is created by using one of the Oceanic-Creations standard platforms. The standard platform of 70 x 25 metres (230 x 82 feet) will give a total ground area of 1,750 sqm (15,750 sq ft) for the construction of superstructures (buildings). Constructed in the OCCT, the superstructure (office building) will be extremely strong and light allowing superstructures up to six stories providing that the utilization of the spaces are for office or living accommodations.

Latest update 28-09-2007 14:22

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