Composites power into Olympic history

The powerboat driven up the River Thames by David Beckham to bring the Olympic flame to the London 2012 opening ceremony was made from UK-based chemical company Scott Bader’s range of Crystic composites.

The Bladerunner BR RIB35 fibreglass powerboat’s laminate construction, designed and manufactured by Surrey-based ICE Marine Ltd, uses a combination of chopped strand matting, biaxial and unidirectional glass and carbon fibre fabrics, as well as PVC foam cores and sandwich laminate sections used extensively in the structural design of both the hull and deck.

Jeremy Watts, Managing Director ICE Marine and also the Bladerunner driver during the torch handover part of the opening ceremony event, commented: “We have been very impressed with the quality and performance reliability of Scott Bader products, which are also easy to use on the shop floor as they have excellent batch to batch consistency, so we know what we are getting every time.”

To achieve the highest long-term mechanical performance of the laminate sandwich structures in key stress areas, ICE Marine states PVC foam cores are first primed using a light coating of catalysed Crystic 489PA resin and then bonded in with Crystic Crestomer 1196PA, a low density gap filling structural adhesive specially designed for core bonding.

ICE Marine uses vacuum bagging to ensure void-free adhesion and to maximise the penetration of the gap filling structural adhesive around the PVC core material.

Image: The Bladerunner BR RIB35 powerboat being driven up the Thames by David Beckham to bring the Olympic flame to the stadium for the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony