STANDING RIGGING COMPONENT, IN PARTICULAR THE MAST OF A VESSEL, AND THE METHOD OF ITS MANUFACTURE

Abstract

A standing rigging element, in particular a mast of a vessel, that has a closed profile, and a method of manufacturing the standing rigging element. The halves of the closed profile are made of layers of structural textile saturated with an epoxy resin and have a shape corresponding to the shape of the standing rigging element, after gluing. The mast includes a layer of photovoltaic modules as one of the laminate layers, with a flat set of flexible photovoltaic cells on the outer surface. Cables collecting electricity from photovoltaic modules are routed from each photovoltaic module to common collecting cables, connected to the electric power supply installation of the vessel. The photovoltaic module includes layers of structural textile, wherein one of the layers is a layer of flexible photovoltaic cells.

Claims

1. A standing rigging element, in particular mast of a vessel comprising: a wall, wherein the wall of said standing rigging element is made of two halves that together form a body with a closed profile shape, in particular of a vessel mast, with the two halves of the closed profile made of layers of structural textile saturated with epoxy resin, with a shape corresponding to a shape of a future standing rigging element after gluing along edges of longitudinal division, and further comprising at least one layered photovoltaic module with a flat set of flexible photovoltaic cells, interconnected and connected to an electric power supply system of the vessel, wherein the layered photovoltaic module has its shape adapted to a shape of an outer surface of the closed profile comprising the standing rigging element, in particular a vessel mast, wherein cables collecting electricity from the photovoltaic modules are routed from each of the photovoltaic modules to common collecting cables connected with the electric power supply system of the vessel.

2. The rigging element according to claim 1, wherein the photovoltaic module includes layers of structural textile, wherein a first layer is a surface layer, a second layer includes at least one layer of non-conductive structural textile, a third layer is a layer of electrically connected photovoltaic cells with outlet cables, a fourth layer includes at least one layer of non-conductive structural textile and a layer of structural textile, while a last layer of the photovoltaic module is another surface layer.

3. The rigging element according to claim 1, wherein the collecting cables collecting electricity from photovoltaic modules are routed inside the standing rigging element.

4. The rigging element according to claim 2, wherein the collecting cables collecting electricity from photovoltaic modules are routed inside a longitudinal groove running along the outer surface of the standing rigging element.

5. A method of manufacture of the standing rigging element, in particular of a vessel mast, which comprises a closed profile, in which two halves of the rigging element are folded along an edge of longitudinal division, forming a standing rigging element in a closed profile form, where the two halves are manufactured in a mould used to shape the element from placed layers of structural textile saturated with epoxy resin and curing takes place inside the mould, with the element corresponding to the standing rigging element's shape after folding both halves along the edge of longitudinal division, wherein, in the form used to shape the half of the standing rigging element, an outer surface textile layer is placed, and subsequently used as a substrate for adjacent, layered photovoltaic modules formed according to the shape of said mould, used as a substrate for at least one layer of structural textile, followed by curing of the aforementioned composite of structural textile layers, including a layer of photovoltaic modules, with epoxy resin.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said curing of the composite of structural textile with epoxy resin includes closing the entire mould with the aforementioned layers inside a vacuum packaging and vacuum is generated inside said vacuum packaging, after which epoxy resin is introduced into the vacuum packaging and once the resin is distributed, the vacuum packing is heated in order to cure the composite, and the half of the standing rigging element is then removed, joined with the second manufactured half, and the joint edge area of both halves of the standing rigging element is preferably laminated.

7. The method of manufacture according to claim 5, wherein heating in the vacuum packaging takes place in temperature up to 150° C., preferably between 8 hours and 16 hours.

8. The method according to claim 5, wherein the layered photovoltaic module is manufactured in a mould used to form the photovoltaic module, in which the outer surface layer is placed and used as a substrate for placing the second layer made of non-conducting structural textile, used in turn as a substrate for placing a layer formed according to the shape of the rigging element, which includes a layer containing a set of electrically connected, flexible photovoltaic cells and said layer of photovoltaic cells is used as a substrate for the next layer made of non-conductive structural textile and a layer made of structural textile, as well as the inner surface textile layer, after which elements of electrical connections are routed through said layers and the composite of layers of structural textile are cured with an epoxy resin.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the layer containing the set of electrically connected, flexible photovoltaic cells are transferred onto the second layer of structural textile by sucking these photovoltaic cells to a bearing plate with a set of openings with suction cups corresponding to the layout of photovoltaic cells, wherein the bearing plate is formed according to the shape of the mould used to form halves of the rigging element while individual rows of photovoltaic cells are sucked to openings in the bearing plate individually, by rolling this bearing plate from one edge of the set of photovoltaic cells towards the other edge of the set of photovoltaic cells, and once said set of photovoltaic cells is transferred to the mould used to laminate the photovoltaic module suction action is removed from suction cups of the bearing plate and the bearing plate is removed.

10. The method according to claim 8, wherein curing of the composite of individual layers of structural textile with epoxy resin is performed such that the entire mould of the photovoltaic module with said layers is closed inside a vacuum packaging and vacuum is generated inside such a vacuum packaging, after which epoxy resin is introduced into the vacuum packaging, and once the resin is distributed, the vacuum packaging is heated to cure the composite and the photovoltaic module is then removed from the vacuum packaging.

11. The method of manufacture according to claim 10, wherein heating in the vacuum packaging takes place in temperature up to 150° C., preferably between 8 hours and 16 hours.

Description

[0032] The subject of the invention is presented in an embodiment in the attached drawings, in which individual figures of the drawing present the embodiment of a standing rigging element in the form of a vessel mast:

[0033] FIG. 1—a part of the mast,

[0034] FIG. 2—the layout of layers of the mast wall in the mould used to form a mast half,

[0035] FIG. 3—a cross-section of the drawing in FIG. 2,

[0036] FIG. 4—the layout of photovoltaic module layers,

[0037] FIG. 5—combination of cells in a photovoltaic modules,

[0038] FIG. 6—unit transferring connected cells according to FIG. 5,

[0039] FIG. 7—a unit according to FIG. 7 during transfer,

[0040] FIG. 8—collecting cables of photovoltaic modules,

[0041] FIG. 9—electric diagram.

[0042] An embodiment of the invention is presented in FIG. 1, in the example of a mast part 1 for a vessel in the form of a multiple hull or a single hull yacht or a vessel provided with a mast. The mast 1 is a closed profile, wherein the wall of the mast 1 is made of two halves 2, 3 comprising the mould of said closed profile. Mast 1 is thus hollow. The halves 2, 3 of this closed profile are made of layers of structural textile saturated with an epoxy resin and have a shape corresponding to the shape of the future, hollow mast 1, after gluing both halves 2, 3 together. The joint edges 4 of halves 2, 3 of the mast 1 are depicted in drawings of FIG. 1 and FIG. 8. The structure of mast 1 is also shown in FIG. 8, which presents an example route of collecting cables 7 inside the mast 1 in more detail.

[0043] Mast 1, a fragment of which is shown in FIG. 1, contains laminated, layered photovoltaic modules 5, containing sets of flexible photovoltaic cells 6, as one of the outer layers. This figure depicts modules 5 very clearly wherein inside the ready mast 1 they can be seen under the outer surface layer of the mast 16 depicted in FIG. 2. Modules 5 placed adjacent to one another form one of the layers comprising the wall of the mast 1. Mast 1 has the known form of a hollow pipe element. Photovoltaic cells 6 are interconnected within each of the modules 5 and connected in a known manner to the electric power system of the vessel using collecting cables 7. The layered photovoltaic module 5 has its shape adapted to the known shape of the outer surface of the closed profile comprising the mast 1 of the vessel. Known cables collecting electricity from photovoltaic panels 6 are routed from each photovoltaic module 5 to common collecting cables 7, connected to the electric power supply installation of the vessel in a known system.

[0044] The photovoltaic module 5 is presented in an expanded view in FIG. 4. Module 5 is made of layers of structural textile layers, where the outer layer 8 is the surface layer. The layer 9 of structural non-conductive textile is the second layer in this embodiment. The next layer of the photovoltaic module is the layer 10 of photovoltaic 6 presented in FIG. 5, connected electrically in a known manner and connected to the outlet collecting cables 7 presented in FIG. 8. The next layers in this embodiment include are the two following layers: layer 11 made of non-conducting structural textile and layer 12 made of structural textile, while the last layer of the layered photovoltaic module is the inner surface layer 13. The term of structural textile related to layers of module 5 should be understood in this patent disclosure as textiles made of carbon, glass, ceramic, aramid or basalt fibres with a basis weight between 50 g/m.sup.2 and 250 g/m.sup.2. These may be single layer textiles with lower basis weight, arranged in multiple layers, or a single thicker textile with crossed fibres, arranged as a single layer.

[0045] FIG. 5 presents an example system of photovoltaic modules 6 comprising a layer 10 of the layered photovoltaic module 5. As shown in this Figure, cells 6 are electrically connected and provided with known electric outlets on their edges, enabling their connection to collecting cables 7.

[0046] The collecting cables 7 collecting electricity from photovoltaic modules 5 are routed inside the mast 1, in protective pipes 14 in this particular embodiment. This is shown in FIG. 8. It cannot be excluded in other embodiments that collecting cables 7 collecting electricity from photovoltaic modules 5 may be routed inside a longitudinal aperture along the outer surface of the mast 1, and the aperture may be closed with a longitudinal wedge.

[0047] An example of electric connections of photovoltaic modules 5 is shown in FIG. 9. Both poles of photovoltaic modules 6 are connected in series and collecting cables 7, anodes and cathodes, are routed from the photovoltaic module 5. Both poles of each module 5 are short-circuited using a bypass diode 20. Cathodes of these modules 5 are connected in parallel to the collecting cable 7 of the cathode. Anodes of other modules 5 are also connected in parallel to the collecting cable 7 of the anode, via blocking diodes 21. Both collecting cables 7 are routed through a known regulator 22 to a batter 23 comprising an element of the power supply system of the vessel.

[0048] The method of manufacture of such a standing rigging element is described below in an example embodiment and in relation to the manufacture method for a mast intended for single hull or multiple hull boat or for a vessel. Mast 1 is a closed, hollow profile manufactured using the lamination technology. This method is characterised in that both halves of the mast are manufactured, with the main edges subsequently used to fold the mast halves passing generally within planes coinciding with the plane of the longitudinal axis of symmetry of the manufactured mast. Both halves, when combined, form the closed profile in the form of a hollow mast 1 body. FIG. 1 and FIG. 8 present the folding edges 4 of both halves of the mast 1, with only parts of the mast shown for clarity.

[0049] Halves of the mast 1 are manufactured using the mould 15, a fragment of which is shown in FIG. 2. The same part of the mould 15 is presented as a cross-section in FIG. 3. The mould 15 is concave in this embodiment and used to manufacture the aforementioned halves 2, 3 of the mast 1, wherein layers of structural textile are placed inside the mould 15 and saturated with an epoxy resin in order to perform the lamination process afterwards. After curing of the laminate made of layers of structural textile and of the epoxy resin, the product is formed inside this mould 15 into a shape of the disclosed mast half, which combined with the other, similar half into a single structure forms the closed profile comprising the body of mast 1.

[0050] The method of manufacture of a standing rigging element in an example embodiment of a vessel mast, characterised in that the mould 15 used to form a mast half and prepared through application of a known anti-adhesion agent on its surface, is used to place the outer surface layer 16 used a substrate for a series of layered photovoltaic modules 5 formed according to the shape of said mould 15, designed for halves 2, 3 of mast 1. Halves 2, 3 of mast 1 differ in design details in different embodiments and in such cases two different moulds should be used in order to obtain the halves 2, 3 of mast 1.

[0051] Three layers 17 of a structural textile are then placed on photovoltaic modules 5 placed on the surface layer 16 adjacent to one another, and curing of the aforementioned composite of structural textile layers containing the photovoltaic module layer 5 is then cured with an epoxy resin. According to an embodiment of the invention, the aforementioned structural textiles are used as textiles made of carbon, glass, ceramic, aramid or basalt fibres with basis weight of 50 g/m.sup.2 to 1000 g/m.sup.2. Individual layers of the structural textile are placed alternately in order to achieve good resistance of the product, for example, the first layer 17 with fibres along the mast, the second layer 17 with fibres transverse to the mast, and the third layer of this textile with fibres diagonal to the mast length. Thus placed layers 17 forming the laminate with the epoxy layer guarantee resistance of the mast 1 to stress applied in various directions.

[0052] A range of known lamination methods is known for such products, for example by mechanically applying epoxy resin on individual layers, during separate processes, with resin application on all textile layers inside the mould within a single process or by using a multi-layer textile with resin present within the textile and activated when heated.

[0053] In this embodiment of the method of manufacture of mast 1 according to the invention, the curing of the composite made of structural textile with epoxy resin is executed such that once all aforementioned textile layers are placed inside the mould used to manufacture of mast halves, together with a layer of adjacent photovoltaic modules 5, the entire mould with the aforementioned textile layers and with the photovoltaic module layer 5 is closed inside a vacuum packaging and vacuum is generated inside this vacuum packaging. Once the vacuum is generated, epoxy resin is introduced into the vacuum packaging through a known valve and once the epoxy resin is spontaneously distributed, saturating said layers, the entire system is heated in order to cure the multi-layer composite containing the layer of adjacent photovoltaic modules 5 as one of the outer layers. The half of a mast 1 is then removed and joined to the second half of the mast manufactured in the same process, by gluing both halves 2, 3 along their edges 4 and the joint area of both halves of the standing rigging elements is then laminated.

[0054] Heating of mast halves in the vacuum packaging is performed in this embodiment in temperature up to 100° C., and preferably for at least 12 hours.

[0055] The layered photovoltaic module is, however, manufactured in a separate mould used to form this photovoltaic module. This mould is not presented in the figure, as it is similar to a mould intended for manufacture of mast halves with the only difference between the moulds being their size. Its shape is adapted to the shape of the surface of each half of the mast 1, where modules 5 are to be laminated.

[0056] The concave shape of the photovoltaic module lamination mould is used to place individual layers of the layered photovoltaic module 5 therein. These layers are presented in an expanded view in FIG. 4. The surface layer 8 comprising the outer layer of the manufactured photovoltaic module 5 and made of textile transparent to light is placed inside the module lamination mould. Next, this first surface layer 8 is used as a substrate for the second layer 9 made of non-conductive structural textile and this second layer 9 is used as a substrate for a layer formed according to the shape of the mast surface, containing a set of electrically connected, flexible photovoltaic cells 6 and this layer of photovoltaic cells 6 is then used as a substrate for at two layers in this embodiment: layer 11 made of non-conductive textile and layer 12 made of structural textile. The next layer 13 is the surface layer. Known elements of electrical connections are then routed through these textile layers and the composite including the aforementioned layers is then cured with an epoxy resin.

[0057] In this embodiment, the process of curing the composite made of individual layers of the structural textile with an epoxy resin in the photovoltaic module 5 is characterised in that the entire mould of the photovoltaic module 5, including the aforementioned layers presented in FIG. 5 is closed in a known vacuum packaging, for example inside a plastic film and vacuum is generated inside the vacuum packaging in order to remove air and achieve contact between said layers. Next, epoxy resin is introduced to the disclosed vacuum packaging through a known cut-off valve and once the resin is spontaneously distributed, the entire system is heated in order to cure the obtained composite, and the cured photovoltaic module in the form of laminate is then removed from the vacuum packaging.

[0058] Heating of the photovoltaic module in the vacuum packaging is performed in this embodiment in temperature preferably up to 100° C., and preferably for at least 10 hours. After this time, the photovoltaic module 5 is ready to be embedded into the walls of a half of the mast 1. Both halves of the mast are provided with a photovoltaic module layer 5 during the manufacture stage.

[0059] Before the layered photovoltaic module 5 is manufactured, individual photovoltaic cells 6 are placed on a plane, forming the desired layout, as presented in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6. Outlets of individual poles of each cell 6 are then connected in a known manner. The thus formed set of flat, flexible cells 6 is transferred onto layers 8, 9 previously placed on the concave surface of the module 5 lamination mould with a structure similar to mould 15. In this embodiment of the invention, the transfer of the disclosed, connected set of cells 6 takes place by lowering a bent bearing plate 18 provided with a set of suction cups 19 onto the set of cells 6, with openings corresponding to the distance between photovoltaic cells 6 made in the bearing plate 18. This is shown in FIG. 6. Lips of suction cups 19 are located above each of the openings. One side of the bearing plate 18 is lowered onto the terminal photovoltaic cells 6, under vacuum. This plate 18 is then rolled over the set of cells 6 in order to achieve contact between the openings and the suction cups 19 over individual rows of photovoltaic cells 6, until the suction cups reach the last row of photo voltaic cells. All flexible photovoltaic cells 6 are sucked to the suction cups 19 on the bearing plate 18, as shown in FIG. 7. In this position, the bearing plate 18 is used to transfer the set of connected photovoltaic cells 6 whilst retaining the desired geometry, according to the curvature of the aforementioned mould used to form photovoltaic modules, conforming to the curvature of mould 15 used to form halves 2, 3 of the mast 1. Once the connected cells 6 are lowered onto layers 8, 9 shown in FIG. 4 and placed inside the mould used to form photovoltaic modules 5, vacuum is switched off and the bearing plate 18 is lifted off the set of photovoltaic cells 6 in this mould, which is covered with textile layers 11, 12, 13 during the next step. The mould with the aforementioned layers is then placed inside the aforementioned vacuum packaging, vacuum is generated and the aforementioned operations of adding epoxy resin to the vacuum packaging and curing are then performed in order to obtain a layered photovoltaic module ready to be placed inside the layered system during the step of manufacture of the half 2, 3 of the mast 1.

LIST OF DESIGNATIONS USED IN THE FIGURES

[0060] 1. Mast [0061] 2. Mast half [0062] 3. Mast half [0063] 4. Joint edge [0064] 5. Photovoltaic module [0065] 6. Photovoltaic cell [0066] 7. Collecting cables [0067] 8. Outer layer of the module [0068] 9. Non-conducting structural textile layer [0069] 10. Photovoltaic cell layer [0070] 11. Non-conducting structural textile layer [0071] 12. Structural textile layer [0072] 13. Surface layer [0073] 14. Protective pipe [0074] 15. Mast shape [0075] 16. Outer surface layer [0076] 17. Structural textile layer [0077] 18. Bearing plate [0078] 19. Suction cup [0079] 20. Bypass diode [0080] 21. Blocking diode [0081] 22. Regulator [0082] 23. Battery